![]() |
ISCApad #220 |
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 by Chris Wellekens |
6-1 | (2016-05-02) Postdoctoral Position in Linguistics (Prosodic Phrasing and Discourse Comprehension), Université catholique de Louvain, Belgique Postdoctoral Position in Linguistics (Prosodic Phrasing and Discourse Comprehension), Université catholique de Louvain The Institute for Language & Communication of the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) is currently seeking a postdoctoral researcher to perform corpus analysis and experimental research on the role of prosody in discourse comprehension. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Prof. Anne Catherine Simon and will join the project “PhraDiCo: Prosodic phrasing for discourse comprehension. Perception of prosodic boundaries and their contribution to the construal of discourse coherence”. He/she will be employed on a fixed-term contract for 24 months. Project Description [PhraDiCo] Prosodic phrasing for discourse comprehension. Perception of prosodic boundaries and their contribution to the construal of discourse coherence. Prosodic phrasing is central to language comprehension and discourse coherence. Spoken language is highly transitory and dynamic. Speech is processed in real-time, as the hearer allocates his attention to each incoming unit and integrates it into a coherent whole. Speech is chunked into prosodic units which are presumably used as basic units of discourse processing. During its first phase, this project aims to explore how ordinary listeners (as opposed to trained experts) perceive prosodic boundaries in spoken language. What is the relationship between the prosodic cues (pauses, lengthening, melodic discontinuity etc.) and the perceived strength of prosodic boundaries? To what extent does the syntactic structure contribute to the perception of prosodic boundaries? Are naïve listeners consistent in their appreciation of boundary strength on word boundaries? Once those questions have been sufficiently tackled, we will focus on analysing the contribution of prosodic boundaries to discourse coherence: relational coherence, which seeks to establish discourse relations between discourse “building blocks”, and referential coherence, i.e. the identification of large-scale discourse topics. Four perceptual experiments have been designed to investigate (i) the acoustic and linguistic factors involved in the perception of prosodic boundary strength; (ii) the influence of speaking styles variability (speech rate, pitch register) on prosodic boundary perception; (iii) the contribution of prosodic units to the construal of discourse relations and (iv) to the identification of large-scale discourse topics. The project is undertaken by the research centre “Valibel – Discours & Variation” (Discourse & Variation, www.uclouvain.be/valibel) and is funded by F.S.R. – FNRS (www.frs-fnrs.be). Job Description
The appointed researcher will work in close collaboration with the project’s supervisor and another postdoctoral researcher. He/she will participate in research leading to scientific publications.
Qualifications
Place of employment: Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (30 km south of Brussels). With 21000 students and 5000-member staff, the University of Louvain is the largest university of the Brussels and Wallonia regions of Belgium. Contract length: 24 months. Contract term: Full-time Starting date: July 2016 Deadline for applications: 5 June 2016
Applications (motivation letter, detailed CV, 1-3 recommendation letters and 3 relevant publications), should be sent in electronic format to Prof. Anne Catherine Simon (anne-catherine.simon@uclouvain.be).
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-2 | (2016-05-10) PhD positions at Inria, France PhD positions are available in our group at Inria, in France, on deep learning for:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-3 | (2016-05-12) PhD Position at LORIA, Nancy, France PhD Position: Merging acquisition and processing of cineMRI of the vocal tract
SubjectTracking the position of speech articulators along time is crucial to understand speech production better. For a long time X-ray imaging was the only technology able to acquire images at a sufficiently high sampling frequency (around 50 images per second) for visualizing articulatory gestures. However, this technique has been abandoned at the end of the eighties because of the health hazard implied by ionizing radiations. Furthermore, since the whole vocal tract is projected on the image plane contours of organs (especially the mandible, teeth and tongue) overlap on the images making the processing of images very difficult.
The interest of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is to provide an excellent contrast of soft tissues for a slice placed in any orientation and dynamic MRI is acknowledged as a powerful tool for imaging speech production [3]. However, current performance of cineMRI remains inadequate in terms of sampling rate and spatial resolution, and the objective of this thesis is to develop more efficient acquisition protocols and algorithms.
The objective is to develop protocols by exploiting the latest advances in MRI, particularly parallel imaging and reconstruction under parsimony constraints called ?compressed sensing? [1]. IADI laboratory developed MRI reconstruction techniques with movement compensation [2] and multi-slice dynamic reconstruction enabling super resolution. These techniques have been already applied to cardio-respiratory movements by using physiological signals (ECG and respiratory) as constraints for the reconstruction algorithms.
A first preliminary work consisting of applying these techniques to the domain of speech production has been carried out [4]. A second work was dedicated to the development of an acquisition protocol based on ?compressed sensing?. The idea is to exploit the parsimony of the image Fourier transform coefficients in order to acquire only a small number of them, and then to reconstruct the image in an optimal manner.
However, it is possible to do better since the speech signal is acquired simultaneously then denoised before being segmented into speech sounds. Therefore, the contribution of each line acquired in the image Fourier space can be related to the speech sound it corresponds to, and one can take advantage of this information to improve the resolution of reconstructed images. This idea will be exploited with the objective of realizing a proof of concept of automatic acquisition/reconstruction of MRI images of vocal tract during speech production. We would like to go further by utilizing the knowledge of the speech sound and the approximative vocal tract shape predicted for the sound by an articulatory model to pilot acquisition.
Keywords: MRI acquisition, compressed sensing, speech processing, articulatory modeling, vocal tract
Some references[1]Michael Lustig, David Donoho, and John M. Pauly. Sparse MRI: The application of compressed sensing for rapid MR imaging. MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE, 58(6):1182?1195, December 2007. [2]F. Odille, P. A. Vuissoz, P. Y. Marie, and J. Felblinger. Generalized reconstruction by inversion of coupled systems (GRICS) applied to free-breathing MRI. Magn Reson Med, 60(1):146?57, July 2008. [3]Andrew D Scott, Marzena Wylezinska, Malcolm J Birch, and Marc E Miquel. Speech MRI: Morphology and function. Physica Medica, 30(6):604?618, 2014. [4]P.A. Vuissoz, F. Odille, Y. Laprie, E. Vincent, G. Hossu, and J. Felblinger. Speech Cine SSFP with optical microphone synchronization and motion compensated reconstruction. In ISMRM Workshop on Motion Correction in MRI, Tromso, Norvège, May 2014. EnvironmentBoth laboratories IADI and LORIA have developed a narrow and fruitful collaboration for years which in particular resulted in the development of a ?compress sensing? acquisition algorithm and in a research contract on articulatory synthesis. A working environment covering articulatory modeling and MRI data acquisition domains is now available and will offer very favorable conditions for this work. Supervisors· Pierre-André Vuissoz (IADI ? Imagerie Adaptative Diagnostique et Interventionnelle, unité INSERM U947) pa.vuissoz@chu-nancy.fr ApplicationWe are looking for a highly motivated person with a master degree in computer sciences, applied mathematics or computer sciences. The applicant should have a solid background in signal processing (and Matlab software) and computer sciences. Knowledge in speech processing will be also appreciated.
a) Motivation letter, b) CV, c) academic transcripts (with explanation of the grade scale adopted), d) 2 references (letters or names)
Expected start date: 1st October 2016
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-4 | (2016-05-14) Senior Speech Analytics Engineer at SRI
Title: Senior Speech Analytics Engineer
Job Description SRI’s Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Lab seeks a self-motivated, team-oriented, experienced leader and innovator to work in the area of speaker state analysis (for example, emotion and health states). The work will include advancing technology capabilities, determining client needs and understanding client data, winning new funding, interacting with clients, both government and commercial, and leading current or new projects in this area. The successful candidate must be proactive and entrepreneurial. This is an opportunity to have a significant impact in an emerging research area. STAR Lab engages in leading-edge research in speech recognition, speaker characterization, speaker and language identification, machine translation, natural language processing and other areas of speech/language technology, offering opportunities from basic research to prototyping, productization, and widespread deployment. The multidisciplinary research team consists of excellent speech researchers, linguists and software engineers. Characteristics of STAR staff are enthusiasm, self-motivation, initiative, passion for learning, taking ownership, thriving in a flat organizational hierarchy, and a desire to control their own career paths. SRI International is a premier nonprofit research organization based in Menlo Park, California with a mission to create world-changing solutions making people safer, healthier, and more productive. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the world’s center for innovation and technology, SRI’s focus spans everything from basic research to delivered systems, government and commercial work and spinning off successful companies like SIRI. Flexible cross-laboratory teams often form dynamically to solve challenging problems spanning multiple disciplines. Requirements A PhD degree or equivalent with at least 10 years of experience in speech or NLP technology. Prior interest in the area of speaker characterization is an advantage. Experience of leading teams of projects in either academia or industry along with a record of either successful proposals (government or industry) or managing a start-up in the speech area is required. Strong oral and written communication skills in English are expected. US citizenship is a plus but not required. Must be flexible to traveling. Apply online at www.sri.com/careers Job ID: 1020BR SRI is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-5 | (2016-05-14) Research Associate Position at York University, Toronto, Canada Research Associate Position at York University, Toronto, Canada
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-6 | (2016-05-14) Speech Technologist @ Voice Tech Startup!, Belmont, MA, USA Speech Technologist @ Voice Tech Startup! Location: Belmont, MA Available: Immediately VocaliD is a voice technology start-up that is bringing speaking machines to life by creating personalized digital voices. Our award-winning technology is grounded in over a decade of research at Northeastern University and has enabled us to attract Small Business Innovation awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. We successfully delivered a set of beta voices in 2015 and have a waiting list of pre-orders though our oversubscribed crowdfunding campaign. We are now seeking an experienced research-based speech technologist to join our team as we launch our personalized voice service in mid 2016. Communications applications and devices are getting smarter and using more sophisticated AI, yet the voices remain robotic and unnatural. Until now, the cost and time to build a custom voice has been prohibitive. VocaliD creates personalized digital voices at scale for use on any device that speaks. Our proprietary voice search and speech blending algorithms leverage our “Human Voicebank”, a collection of 3.5 million of recordings crowdsourced from around the world. Our breakthrough is that we only need 2-3 seconds of someone’s voice to (re)create a voice when combined with recordings of a matched speaker from the Voicebank. Our initial market addresses the 10M+ people worldwide who use a machine to speak. VocaliD enables these individuals to speak in their own voice instead of the familiar “Stephen Hawking” voice. Join our dynamic team as we push the envelop on innovation while having real social impact! Responsibilities: - Create tools for filtering and parsing recorded voices - Implement machine learning algorithms to match donor and recipient voices - Enhance source-filter separation and voice conversion algorithms - Design and implement novel algorithms for tracking and monitoring speech changes - Create a framework for algorithmic synthesis of voices from donor samples - Implement a SaaS framework for voice deployment Required Qualifications: - MS or PhD in Electrical or Computer Engineering, Computer Science or related field - Experience programming in C/C++, Python, Java - Experience productizing algorithms from prototypes in Matlab (or other) - Experience with Digital Signal Processing and ideally speech/voice technologies - Experience with AWS services EC2, S3, RDS (Postgres), Route 53 - Experience with Windows and Linux If you are interested in joining a thriving and passionate team, please submit a cover letter and resume to rupal@vocaliD.co Visit us at www.vocaliD.co for more information about VocaliD.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-7 | (2016-05-18) Researcher at laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-Marseille University, France
Call for Postdoctoral Positions in Cognitive Science/Psychology/Linguistics
Institution: Laboratoire Parole et Langage (CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université)
Location: Aix-en-Provence, France
No. of positions: 1
Duration: 2 years (see below)
Application deadline: July 20, 2016
The Laboratoire Parole et Langage (CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, FR) invites applications for one postdoctoral fellowship supported by a grant from the French National Research Agency (ANR). The funded project aims at exploring the role of prosody in speech planning and how planning strategies are affected both by the pragmatic situation and by individual cognitive-emotional abilities. Cognitive-emotional constraints are investigated by comparing healthy adults and clinically impaired individuals (patients affected by multiple sclerosis). The project involves an interdisciplinary team from across the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (which includes experts in linguistics, speech analysis, psychology) including collaboration with the 'Pôle de Neurosciences Cliniques' of the Hospital la Timone (Marseille) and the Neurology Department of the Centre Hospitalier du Pays d'Aix (Aix-en-Provence).
Applicants must have a Ph.D. in a relevant field of study (e.g., Cognitive Science, Linguistics, Psychology), and a strong background in experimental design and statistics. Special attention will be given to candidates with expertise in cognitive aspects of social coordination and in emotion in spoken language. Experience with psychophysiological methodologies and conducting studies with neurological patients is also highly desirable.
The postdoctoral appointment is for a duration of up to two years depending on the starting date, and subject to review after the first year. Applicants should hold a PhD or expect to complete a PhD by the starting date. The starting date is flexible, though the position should be filled by the beginning of the fall of 2016.
Applications should include (i) a cover letter that relates the applicants’ experience and interests to the project, (ii) a comprehensive CV, (iii) the names and contact information of two references, and (iv) a PDF copy of all publications or a list of links where these can be accessed.
Applications in French or English may be sent by email to Elisa Sneed German at elisa.sneed@lpl-aix.fr.
For further inquiries regarding the position or the project, please contact Caterina Petrone (Principal Investigator) at caterina.petrone@lpl-aix.fr.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-8 | (2016-05-25) PhD Positions in Signal Processing for Speech Communication, Graz University, Austria =============================================
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-9 | (2016-06-01) Ph.D. grant at IRISA, Rennes
Merci de diffuser cette information auprès de personnes qui pourraient être intéressées. Peuvent candidater à cette thèse des étudiants ayant un master recherche en linguistique (spécialité phonétique et phonologie, prosodie, discours), en linguistique informatique ou en informatique. Ils doivent être intéressés par un travail collaboratif et par le traitement automatique de la parole. Pour plus de précisions ou pour postuler, merci de contacter : - Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie : elisabeth.roussarie@wanadoo.fr - Damien Lolive : damien.lolive@irisa.fr Date limite de candidature : 4 juillet 2016
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-10 | (2016-06-12) Ingénieur de recherche, LPL, Aix-en-Provence, France http://www.dgdr.cnrs.fr/drhita/concoursita/consulter/resultats/consulter.htm
http://www.dgdr.cnrs.fr/drhita/concoursita/consulter/resultats/consulter.htm
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-11 | (2016-06-18) Postdoc à l'IRISA, Rennes, France Proposition de travaux de these, IRISA, equipe Expression Titre : Optimisation de scripts d'enregistrement pour la lecture expressive de livres audio Mots-clefs : synthese de la parole expressive ; optimisation et apprentissage. Contexte : Le projet vise a etudier la realisation automatique de livres audio a l'aide d'une voix de synthese. La duree d'ecoute de l'integralite d'une uvre necessite une voix de haute qualite a l'expressivite adaptee. Un systeme de synthese vocale a partir du texte (TTS) produit un signal de parole correspondant a une vocalisation d'un texte donne. Ces dernieres annees, la TTS a fait de nombreux progres en termes de qualite acoustique et d'intelligibilite, mais la production d'une voix expressive de tres bonne qualite reste un verrou scientique (voir [1] et ses references). Cette qualite vocale depend fortement du systeme TTS (parametrique, ou par selection et concatenation d'unites sonores) et du corpus de parole utilise. Frequemment, la creation d'un tel corpus de parole necessite l'enregistrement de la lecture d'un script specique avec des types d'expressivite donnes. Ce processus d'enregistrement etant complexe et co^uteux, de nombreux travaux portent sur la creation d'un script permettant de couvrir un maximun d'evenements souhaites tout en minimisant sa duree (voir [2, 3, 4] et leurs references). Proposition : La problematique etudiee dans ce projet de these est la creation de livres audio sous une forme hybride : il s'agit d'enregistrer une partie minimale des livres vises pour produire une voix de synthese la mieux adaptee au texte restant a vocaliser. Plus generalement, le sujet porte sur l'etude des methodes de construction et d'enrichissement automatique de scripts d'enregistrement an de produire une voix de synthese de haute qualite pour des textes pre-denis d'expressivite variee. Cette approche se formalise en un probleme d'optimisation d'un compromis entre qualite des messages acoustiques naux et quantite de texte a enregistrer. Un premier axe de travail concerne la problematique de l'evaluation subjective et objective. Dans le cadre general de la synthese de la parole, l'evaluation de la qualite des signaux produits est un probleme qui fait l'objet de nombreuses etudes (voir par exemple [5, 6, 7]) mais qui reste dicile. En quoi le fait de conna^tre a l'avance le texte a vocaliser ou de disposer de signaux de parole naturelle realises dans le m^eme contexte permet de simplier ce probleme ? D'un autre cote, le livre audio produit sera un melange de signaux naturels et de signaux de synthese. Il sera donc necessaire d'etudier et de proposer des approches speciques pour evaluer de tels objets et, en particulier, depasser l'evaluation subjective a l'echelle de la phrase. Un deuxieme axe de travail porte sur la construction automatique du script d'enregistrement et la denition d'un compromis entre la qualite des signaux et la taille de l'enregistrement associe. Plusieurs verrous sont deja identies. Comment les descripteurs textuels inuencent-ils la qualite nale ? En particulier, quelles methodes d'apprentissage, guidees par des mesures objectives de qualite, conduisent aux jeux de descripteurs optimaux ? Un dernier axe de travail porte sur l'etude de la prise en compte des alterations entre le resultat theorique attendu lie au script d'enregistrement et le signal acoustique reel issu de la phase d'enregistrement. Comment detecter ces variations et adapter dynamiquement le script an de conserver la qualite acoustique nale initialement attendue ? Environnement de travail : le projet sera realise au sein de l'equipe Expression de l'IRISA, dans sa composante lannionnaise specialisee sur les problematiques de synthese de la parole et de traitement automatique des langues. Il sera encadre conjointement par Damien Lolive 1 et Jonathan Chevelu (IRISA-ENSSAT Lannion, Universite de Rennes1) et beneciera d'un nancement sur trois ans (nancement des conseils departemental et regional). L'equipe dispose d'un moteur de synthese de la parole par corpus, d'un moteur statistique (HTS), d'un studio d'enregistrement, d'une plate-forme de tests d'ecoute [8] et d'une collection de livres audio annotes [9] qu'elle enrichit dans le cadre d'un projet ANR. Prol du candidat : Le candidat sera dipl^ome d'un master informatique ou de toute autre formation equivalente. Compte-tenu du sujet, des competences avancees en algorithmique et programmation seront requises. Le candidat disposera de la motivation et des facultes necessaires pour aborder les domaines de recherche de la synthese de la parole, de l'apprentissage articiel et du traitement automatique des langues. Contacts : Damien LOLIVE (damien.lolive@irisa.fr) et Jonathan CHEVELU (jonathan.chevelu@irisa.fr) Bibliographie [1] D. Govind, S. R. Mahadeva Prasanna, Expressive speech synthesis : a review, Int. J. of Speech Tech., p. 1-24, 2013. [2] H. Francois, Synthese de la parole par concatenation d'unites acoustiques : construction et exploitation d'une base de parole continue, these de l'Univ. de Rennes 1, 2002 [3] D. Cadic, Optimisation du procede de creation de voix en synthese par selection, these de l'Univ. de Paris 11, 2011 [4] N. Barbot, O. Boe SCP algorithms, Computational Linguistics 41(3) : 355-383, 2015 [5] N. Campbell, Evaluation of speech synthesis : from reading machines to talking machines, Evaluation of Text and Speech Synthesis, (L. Dybjoer at al. Eds.) , Chapitre 2, 2007 [6] J. Chevelu, D. Lolive, S. Le Maguer, D. Guennec, How to compare TTS systems : a new subjective evaluation methodology focused on di [7] C.-T. Do, M. Evrard, A. Leman, C. d'Alessandro, A. Rilliard, J.-L. Crebouw, Objective evaluation of HMM-based Speech synthesis system using Kullback-Liebler divergence, Interspeech, 2015 [8] L. Blin, O. Boe and speech conversion evaluation, LREC, 2008 [9] O. Boe of audio books for TTS, LREC, 2012 2
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-12 | (2016-06-20) Ingénieur d'études, Université de Grenoble, France Ingénieur(e) d’études – CDD 6 mois Contexte et environnement Dans le Projet MANES (Médiation et Accessibilité Numérique pour les Etudiants Sourds) financé par l’UNR-RA), l’université Grenoble-Alpes recrute un ingénieur d’études pour un CDD de 6 mois (ou 2 CDD de 3 mois). L’objectif général du projet est de développer un dispositif de sous-titrage en temps-réel pour rendre accessible le discours oral de l’enseignant aux étudiants sourds, de façon à favoriser l’appropriation individuelle des savoirs, par le biais de la prise de notes. La réalisation technologique et les capacités de traitement de l’écrit par les publics sourds seront les deux axes de ce projet. L’ingénieur(e) d’études recruté(e) participera à l’étape « expérimentation du dispositif » visant à tester l’apport d’un dispositif de ce type pour favoriser la prise de notes des étudiants sourds. Missions principales L’ingénieur(e) d’études recruté(e) sera chargé(e), en lien avec les chercheurs participant au projet, de l’élaboration, de la passation et de l’analyse des expérimentations auprès des étudiants sourds. o Montage d’une pré-expérimentation vidéo en ligne (plateforme moodle) o Quizz vidéo LSF en ligne à réaliser : élaboration des questions, élaboration des vidéos questions en LSF, élaboration d’un module de questionnaire en ligne sur moodle o Annotation des prises de notes (français écrit) et des restitutions (LSF) o adaptation du système de sous-titrage au public sourd Compétences - Expérience de recherche souhaitée dans le domaine de la surdité et/ou dans le domaine des TICE. - Compétences en LSF et en français écrit - Compétences linguistiques pour l’analyse du français écrit et de la LSF - Compétences multimédia : outil de transcription (ELAN), de sous-titrage, de montage vidéo et création de modules en ligne (MOODLE ou autre plateforme pédagogique). - Une expérience en programmation web serait un plus. Profil du candidat - Issu(e) d’un master dans le domaine des Sciences du Langage ; Industrie de la Langue, Informatique, Sciences de l’éducation, psychologie Contexte de travail L’ingénieur d’études travaillera au sein du laboratoire LIDILEM (Laboratoire de LInguistique et de Didactique des Langues Etrangères et Maternelles) ou LIG (Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble). Modalités de candidatures Les candidatures (CV détaillé et lettre de motivation) sont à adresser au porteur du projet MANES : Isabelle Estève (Isabelle.esteve@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr ) ; dès à présent et jusqu’au vendredi 24 juin.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-13 | (2016-06-18) 4 PhD grants at KTH Stockholm, Sweden up to 4 PhD students in conversational systems and social robots
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-14 | (2016-06-20) Research Group Leader in Intelligent Human-Robot Cooperation, University of Stuttgart, Germany href='http://ipvs.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/mlr/research-group-leader/'>
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-15 | (2016-06-21) PhD grant at IRIT, Toulouse, France l'Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse propose une offre de thèse intitulée
'Prédiction de la qualité des sorties de systèmes de reconnaissance automatique de la parole et stratégies d'adaptation'.
Le candidat retenu devra être titulaire d'un master en Informatique avec une expérience souhaitée en Traitement de la Parole. Une expérience en Reconnaissance Automatique de la parole est un plus.
Pour de plus amples informations ou pour candidater, merci de contacter:
- Jérôme Farinas: jerome.farinas@irit.fr
La date limite de candidature est le 15 Juillet 2016.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-16 | (2016-07-07) 1 PhD position in bio-inspired ASR, 1 PhD position in brain-signal based ASR at the Italian Institute of Technology Title: 1 PhD position in bio-inspired ASR, 1 PhD position in brain-signal based ASR
The Center for Translational Neurophysiology of Speech and Communication (CTNSC) at the Italian Institute of Technology is seeking for motivated PhD students who will work on bio-inspired automatic speech recognition (ASR) and brain-signal based ASR. The successful candidates will have a Master degree in Computer Science, Engineering (or equivalent) and a background in machine learning and/or signal processing.
The candidates should apply by the 5th of August, 2016. PhD courses will start on the 1st of November, 2016.
CTNSC Info: https://www.iit.it/centers/ctnsc-unife
PhD page [ITA]: http://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/concorsi/ordinario
PhD course summary [ITA]: http://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/modulistica/concorsi/32-ciclo/neuroscienze
How to participate to the selection [ITA/ENG]: http://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/modulistica/Guidaconcorso.pdf
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-17 | (2016-07-13) Permanent research position in machine learning for natural language processing, Orange Labs, Lannion, France Job offer: permanent research position in machine learning for natural language processing
Mission: Conceive algorithms and develop softwares for natural language processing, with applications to automatic extraction of structured knowledge from documents
Position environment: In Orange Labs, the « CONTENT » department prepares the future of content access services (music, video, press, radio, education, entertainment). The job is opened in a multidisciplinary team, located in Lannion, France, in which are conducted collaborative studies with academics (collaborative projects, PhD supervision, scientific publications) and research and development projects with strong interactions with operational units of Orange (marketing, customer experience, design?)
Candidate profile: PhD or significant research experience in the field of machine learning, with an noticeable interest on natural language processing
In order to visualize the full offer and to apply on line : https://orange.jobs/jobs/offer.do?joid=54926&lang=FR
For more information, please contact: Gilles Prigent (gilles.prigent@orange.com) Delphine Charlet (delphine.charlet@orange.com) Géraldine Damnati (geraldine.damnati@orange.com)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-18 | (2016-07-15) ASR Research Scientist (Chinese) Oben Pasadena, California
■ PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Mathematics with specialization in speech recognition, natural language processing or machine learning. ■ Solid experience building ASR systems (Chinese) and/or a publication record in the area. ■ Solid experience with Kaldi. ■ Strong machine learning background and familiar with standard statistical modeling techniques applied to speech. ■ Familiarity with linguistic phonetics. ■ Proficiency in programming languages such as C/C++, Python, Java or Perl. ■ Knowledge of basic digital signal processing techniques for audio. ■ Enjoys a highly collaborative environment.
● Detailed resume and/or Linkedin profile. ● Links to prominent scientific/professional contributions. Contact: Fernando Villavicencio <fernando@oben.com>
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-19 | (2016-07-20) PhD position at IDIAP, Martigny, Switzerland. In the context of a Swiss NSF grant, we seek a PhD student to work on multilingual and
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-20 | (2016-07-21) Speech Analytics Engineer , SRI, Menlo Park, CA, USA
Speech Analytics Engineer Job Description SRI’s Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Lab seeks a self-motivated and team-oriented speech engineer to join a team working on modeling of speaker state (for example, emotion and health). The position offers both research and commercial opportunities, and a potential for growth and client interaction. The work will include advancing technology capabilities, understanding client data and conducting experiments involving model development and testing, under current or new projects in this area. This is an opportunity to have a significant impact in an emerging research area. STAR Lab engages in leading-edge research in speech recognition, speaker characterization, speaker and language identification, machine translation, natural language processing and other areas of speech/language technology, offering opportunities from basic research to prototyping, productization, and widespread deployment. The multidisciplinary research team consists of excellent speech researchers, linguists and software engineers. Characteristics of STAR staff are enthusiasm, self-motivation, initiative, passion for learning, taking ownership, thriving in a flat organizational hierarchy, and a desire to control their own career paths. SRI International is a premier nonprofit research organization based in Menlo Park, California with a mission to create world-changing solutions making people safer, healthier, and more productive. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the world’s center for innovation and technology, SRI’s focus spans everything from basic research to delivered systems, government and commercial work and spinning off successful companies like SIRI. Flexible cross-laboratory teams often form dynamically to solve challenging problems spanning multiple disciplines. Requirements -PhD (preferred) or Master’s degree in electrical engineering or computer science, with experience in advanced speech signal processing and in state of the art machine learning techniques for speech processing. -Additional background in natural language processing is useful. -Work experience outside the PhD institution, including internships, is preferred. -Candidates should have an interest in the topic area, excellent programming skills, be a quick learner, be proactive and efficient, and work well both individually and in teams. Apply online at www.sri.com/careers Job ID: 1239BR SRI is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-21 | (2016-07-28) Announcing 14 PhD positions on a new Marie Curie European Training Network, ENRICH Announcing 14 PhD positions on a new Marie Curie European Training Network, ENRICH (Enriched Communication Across the Lifespan)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-22 | (2016-08-01) Positions at the French 'Police Technique et Scientifique', Ecully (Lyon), France Le service audio de la Police Technique et Scientifique (Ecully, près de Lyon) recherche des vacataires pour effectuer un travail de segmentation et/ou d'enregistrements de locuteurs. - un intérêt pour la linguistique ou pour les langues
- une bonne maitrise de l'informatique et des nouvelles technologiques
- une connaissance du logiciel Praat sera appréciée
Les vacations s'effectueront jusqu'à fin octobre 2016.
Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter laurianne.georgeton@gmail.com
ou de téléphoner au 0472868638
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-23 | (2016-08-12) Offre de thèse à IRISA, Rennes, Bretagne, France Merci de diffuser cette information auprès de personnes qui pourraient être intéressées.
Les candidats doivent posséder de bonnes compétences en Informatique et être intéressés par un travail collaboratif et par le traitement automatique de la parole, l?apprentissage automatique et l?intelligence artificielle. Pour plus de précisions ou pour postuler, merci de contacter : - Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie : elisabeth.roussarie@wanadoo.fr - Damien Lolive : damien.lolive@irisa.fr Début souhaité: Octobre 2016.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-24 | (2016-08-19) Thesis opportunity in linguistics / phonetics at Spring, France Looking for an opportunity in linguistics / phonetics Spring France is currently hiring for one of its clients several Junior Linguists for a CDD contract from the beginning of September until end December 2016.
Job description:
The role of the Junior Linguist is to annotate and review linguistic data in French. The Junior Linguist will also contribute to a number of other tasks to improve natural language processing. The tasks include:
- Providing phonetic/phonemic transcription of lexicon entries
- Analyzing acoustic data to evaluate speech synthesis
- Annotating and reviewing linguistic data
- Labeling text for disambiguation, expansion, and text normalization
- Annotating lexicon entries according to guidelines
- Evaluating current system outputs
- Deriving NLP data for new and on-going projects
- Be able to work independently with confidence and little oversight
Minimum Requirements:
- Native speaker of French and fluent in English
- Extensive knowledge of phonetic/phonemic transcriptions
- Familiarity with TTS tools and techniques
- Experience in annotation work
- Knowledge of phonetics, phonology, semantics, syntax, morphology or lexicography
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Attention to detail and good organizational skills
Desired Skills:
- Degree in Linguistics or Computational Linguistics or Speech processing
- Ability to quickly grasp technical concepts; learn in-house tools
- Keen interest in technology and computer-literate
- Listening Skills
- Fast and Accurate Keyboard Typing Skills
- Familiarity with Transcription Software
- Editing, Grammar Check and Proofing Skills
- Research Skills
Applications to be sent to Dominique.auffroy@springfrance.com under the reference 6528162.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-25 | (2016-08-20) Position in linguistic Code-Switching at Columbia University, NY, USA
We are asking for input on researchers’ interest and engagement in computational approaches to linguistic Code-Switching in any language pair, modality, or genre. A brief survey can be found at the link below.
https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/1ARm04N_si_7VaMPjtbWOFUUjxJZm7TQmjgNSHcUNPcw
Mona Diab Julia Hirschberg Thamar Solorio
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-26 | (2016-08-29) Research Scientist positions at Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge, UK Applications are invited for Research Scientist positions at Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge in the areas of Applied Machine Learning, Embedded Systems and Sensor engineering with a strong focus on Pervasive Sensing and Mobile Systems. Nokia and Bell Labs Nokia is a global leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Powered by the pioneering work of Bell Labs, our research and innovation division, and Nokia Technologies, we are at the forefront of creating and licensing the technologies that are increasingly at the heart of our connected lives. Nokia Bell Labs is internationally renowned as the birthplace of modern information theory, the transistor, the laser and the UNIX operating system. Bell Labs Cambridge Bell Labs' research facility in Cambridge is a leading lab working in the areas of Mobile Sensing and Systems, Applied Machine Learning, Social Computing and Internet of Things research. We have openings for inspired innovators in our Pervasive Sensing and Systems Department of the Application Platforms and Software Systems (A&S) research Program. The department's research agendas are:
Main duties and responsibilities
Expected qualifications, skills and experience required for this job A PhD in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering with a strong focus on UbiComp and Mobile Computing. A PostDoc experience is a plus.
For informal query or more information please contact Dr. Fahim Kawsar (fahim.kawsar@nokia-bell-labs.com) or Dr. Nic Lane (nic.lane@nokia-bell-labs.com).
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-27 | (2016-09-04) postdoctoral position on the Evaluation of an Adaptive Training Virtual Environment, Heudiasyc Lab CNRS We are inviting applications for one postdoctoral position on the Evaluation of an Adaptive Training Virtual Environment at Heudiasyc Lab CNRS (https://www.hds.utc.fr/).
Context Feedback selection is a major issue for intelligent virtual environments for training. Expert knowledge provides useful insight, but it can be difficult to collect. Furthermore, the influence of a specific type of feedback may vary across trainees and over training, which is rarely reflected in expert knowledge. As part of an automatic gesture training system, we modelled the co-evolution between a trainee and a training environment. We consider trainees by their levels in every dimensions of the task, and the training environment as the relevance of every element in its set of feedback. Over time, this co-evolution is reflected by trainee successive performances, and changes in the feedback selection. We model these interactions as a multi-armed bandit problem, each arm representing a type of feedback. This allows to adapt feedback selection only relying on the interactions between the trainee and the training environment, without any prior knowledge. Combining the trainee and the set of feedback in a single representation space, we show how our model can provide useful indicators regarding trainees progression and feedback relevance.
Objective The goal of this post-doc is to evaluate the impact of adaptation in training virtual environments. We believe that co-evolution based on the enaction theory has a positive impact on training. The candidate will design an experiment in order to validate the model. Two platforms are available to conduct this experiment: a 2D platform (PhD Remy Frenoy) and a 3D platform (extension of the model in a CAVE). One major issue is the role of feedback for controlling the interaction. A second issue is the impact of giving an importance to errors in training, in order to propose a flexible, personalized and easy of use training.
The position is for two years, starting before 15th December 2016. The successful candidate will join the Heudiasyc research team (https://www.hds.utc.fr/).) at the CNRS premises within the Campus of the UTC (http://www.utc.fr/the_university/index.php), in Compiegne, France. The research activity will be carried out under the supervision of Indira Thouvenin (http://www.hds.utc.fr/~ithouven
Professor/ Enseignant-Chercheur HDR / http://www.hds.utc.fr/~ithouven UMR CNRS 7253 Heudiasyc Sorbonne Universités, Université de technologie de Compiègne Génie Informatique - bureau 141
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-28 | (2016-10-03) Ph grant at the laboratoire de phonétique de l’Université de Mons, Belgium Offre de bourse de doctorat _____________________________________________________________________________________ Service de Métrologie et Sciences du Langage, Laboratoire de phonétique, Université de Mons, Mons, Belgique _____________________________________________________________________________________ Le service de métrologie et sciences du langage (laboratoire de phonétique de l’Université de Mons, Belgique) recherche, un spécialiste (M/F) de l’étude de la parole humaine désireux de préparer, en son sein, une thèse de doctorat. Profil du candidat (M/F) : Secteur de formation initiale : Sciences du langage (linguistique, logopédie, psychologie du langage,…) à titre de formation de base ou à tout le moins de formation complémentaire approfondie. Niveau à l’entrée : • Au moins niveau « master » (« bac+5 », 300 crédits) au sens du décret de la Communauté Française de Belgique organisant l’enseignement supérieur. Compétences transversales • Aptitude au travail en équipe, créativité, autonomie, curiosité scientifique. • Bonne maîtrise de l’outil informatique (tableurs, gestion de bases de données, traitements de texte). • Maîtrise au moins quasi-native de la langue française à l’écrit et à l’oral. • Maîtrise de la langue anglaise au moins au niveau C1 du CECR dans les 4 compétences . Une sensibilité à la problématique des langues étrangères, la maîtrise d’autres langues, des connaissances en phonétique (en particulier l’analyse objective de la parole), des connaissances et des compétences en mathématiques appliquées (en particulier en statistiques), constituent des atouts complémentaires. Track record La personne recrutée peut se prévaloir de mentions égales ou supérieures à la grande distinction en bachelier et en master. Profil du poste: La personne recrutée se voit octroyer une bourse de doctorat d’un an. Elle s’engage à tenter d’obtenir, durant ce terme, un financement plus étendu en concourant pour des postes tels que chercheur FRIA, FRESH et/ou aspirant FNRS. Au terme de la première année, en cas d’absence du financement alternatif ainsi recherché, la personne est évaluée par le comité d’accompagnement. Sur cette base, elle peut se voir octroyer –ou non- un terme additionnel de 2 ans. Durant ce nouveau terme, elle s’engage à poursuivre sa recherche de financements extérieurs de son doctorat. En aucun cas, la durée cumulée des bourses de recherche doctorale ne peut excéder 4 années. Prise de fonctions : au plus tôt. Les personnes intéressées sont priées d’adresser, pour le 30 octobre au plus tard, un dossier comportant : • une lettre de motivation ; • un curriculum vitae ; • tout document jugé utile ; au format pdf (exclusivement) à l’adresse : bernard.harmegnies@umons.ac.be Projet scientifique Des concepts tels que fatigue ou stress sont fréquemment évoqués tant en sciences de la vie qu’en sciences humaines. Ils se caractérisent non seulement par le fait que leur portée s’étend aussi bien à la biochimie qu’au psychisme humains, mais surtout par l’idée qu’une action sur l’esprit peut ici avoir des répercussions sur le corps et vice-versa. Ces notions demeurent pourtant variablement définies et diversement objectivées, comme l’est aussi, dans ce contexte, l’interaction entre physiologie et psychisme. Le projet dans le cadre duquel s’inscrit le doctorat pour lequel il est ici fait appel vise à élucider ces relations complexes en étudiant l'évolution conjointe, dans une approche intrasujets, de trois types de variables: (i) des variables situationnelles (tant à variation invoquée qu’à variation provoquée); (ii) des marqueurs biologiques de l'état du sujet humain (approche métabonomique et bio-marqueurs spécifiques enregistrés au sein de divers biofluides); (iii) les mesures révélatrices du traitement du langage par le sujet (gestion de la parole en émission et en réception). Les contextes dans lesquels sont recueillies les observations sont ceux du contrôle par le sujet humain de processus complexes, spécialement en aéronautique, domaine hautement générateur de « situations-problèmes » potentiellement suscitatrices de phénomènes. Le doctorat se centre plus particulièrement sur les variables situationnelles et cible spécifiquement celles qui sont liées aux langues utilisées par le sujet. On sait aujourd’hui que la réalité physique des sons de parole est notamment influencée par divers facteurs qui s’y rapportent. Ceux-ci peuvent être liés à l’inscription communautaire du sujet (on peut par exemple citer les variabilités diatopique, diastratique, ou diachronique), voire aux actions exogènes visant délibérément à modifier les caractéristiques phoniques des sons de parole, par exemple dans les contextes de l’enseignement/apprentissage (et/ou de l’utilisation) de langues non-maternelles. D’autres déterminants, de nature endogène au sujet, peuvent également se manifester, qu’ils trouvent leur origine dans la sphère cognitive (maîtrise des langues, expertise multilingue, etc.), soit dans la sphère affective (posture personnelle par rapport aux langues utilisées). Ces travaux qui, à des titres divers, démontrent l’action de ces facteurs endogènes sur les productions vocales, ouvrent la voie à un positionnement moins descriptif mais plus centré sur la valeur indicielle des observations effectuées: puisque ces facteurs ont un effet sur le signal vocal, la détection de leurs marques dans le signal ouvre la voie d’une caractérisation, par la seule analyse des productions phoniques, de l’état du locuteur. Le secteur des transports, et en particulier celui de l’aéronautique, s’est montré graduellement plus intéressé par ces perspectives lors des dernières décennies ; à un moment où nombre d’incidents ou d’accidents y sont aujourd’hui imputables au facteur humain plus qu’à des défauts techniques, le développement de recherches susceptibles de contribuer à l’élaboration de systèmes d’alerte propres à détecter des altérations de la fonctionnalité du pilote et ce, sur la base de variations du seul signal vocal, fait figure de défi stratégique. Si plusieurs recherches ont certes démontré l’intérêt de ces perspectives, force est cependant de constater que les résultats en sont extrêmement diversifiés, voire parfois contradictoires. Ceci s’explique probablement d’une part par l’insuffisance du volume de données global recueilli et d’autre part par l’importante diversité méthodologique qui caractérise le champ. De ce point de vue, trois dimensions apparaissent nécessiter une attention particulière. D’une part, ces recherches, sont d’ordinaire restreintes à des productions vocales anglophones, laissent dans l’ombre les autres langues de communication aéronautique et, ipso facto, négligent les interactions possibles entre le facteur langue et les divers facteurs étudiés ; peu, par ailleurs, prennent en considération le caractère fréquemment multilingue des communications aéronautiques et le fait que, souvent, les agents sont amenés à s’exprimer dans une langue non maternelle ; aucune, par ailleurs, n’interroge le problème de la perte différentielle de compétence phonique en L2 et en L1 sous l’effet des conditions adverses de communication. La thèse visée se centrera en conséquence tant sur les effets exercés par les variables situationnelles liées aux situations de contrôle de processus complexes sur la performance multilingue que sur les effets de divers types de multilinguismes sur l’efficacité du contrôle de processus complexes gérés en contextes multilingues.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-29 | (2016-10-06) Two positions at DefinedCrowd Corporation at its RandD center in Lisbon, Portugal We’re DefinedCrowd Corporation (http://www.definedcrowd.com), headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with a R&D center in Lisbon, Portugal. We provide machine learning training data for artificial intelligence products and applications internationally. Our clients ranges from Fortune 500 companies to cutting-edge AI and robotics companies and we just got invested by Amazon and Sony. We are a Microsoft Accelerator alumni company, and we are recognized as the fastest growing company in the big data arena for AI. As we continue to expand our international footprint at DefinedCrowd, we are looking for talented new members to join this energetic, hardworking and fun team in both Seattle headquarter and in Lisbon R&D center. As we continue to grow at DefinedCrowd, we are constantly challenging ourselves with finding the most efficient way to manage business operation, building most suitable and sustainable models for our lines of business, creating a highly recognized and trusted brand among both clients and crowd communities. Current job offers:
Data Scientist (Seattle or Lisbon) We’re looking for a Data Scientist with an NLP background reporting to the CTO to drive the data science strategy and quality control using machine learning for DefinedCrowd.
Main requirements
Nice to have
Technical Program Manager (Seattle or Lisbon) We are looking for a Program Manager with an NLP background reporting to the Program Manager Lead in Lisbon. He/she will be responsible for helping managing customer deliverables, defining data quality, working with the Engineering team on the platform features, validating quality against customer requirements and data reporting and analytics. Scripting and basic programming skills will be required. Required skills:
Please submit your resume to hr@definedcrowd.com. We are looking forward to hearing from you. Positions opened until filled. Date: 09/10/2016
|