• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.155-163
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• 2009

In text-to-speech systems, the conversion of text into prosodic parameters is necessarily composed of three steps. These are the placement of prosodic boundaries. the determination of segmental durations, and the specification of fundamental frequency contours. Prosodic boundaries. as the most important and basic parameter. affect the estimation of durations and fundamental frequency. Break prediction is an important step in text-to-speech systems as break indices (BIs) have a great influence on how to correctly represent prosodic phrase boundaries, However. an accurate prediction is difficult since BIs are often chosen according to the meaning of a sentence or the reading style of the speaker. In Japanese, the prediction of an accentual phrase boundary (APB) and major phrase boundary (MPB) is particularly difficult. Thus, this paper presents a method to complement the prediction errors of an APB and MPB. First, we define a subtle BI in which it is difficult to decide between an APB and MPB clearly as a variable break (VB), and an explicit BI as a fixed break (FB). The VB is chosen using the classification and regression tree, and multiple prosodic targets in relation to the pith and duration are then generated. Finally. unit-selection is conducted using multiple prosodic targets. In the MOS test result. the original speech scored a 4,99. while proposed method scored a 4.25 and conventional method scored a 4.01. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the naturalness of synthesized speech.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.983-984
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• 2008

This paper proposes a variable break that can offset prediction error as well as a pre-selection methods, based on the variable break, for enhanced unit selection. In Japanese, a sentence consists of several APs (Accentual phrases) and MPs (Major phrases), and the breaks between these phrases must predicted to realize text-to-speech systems. An MP also consists of several APs and plays a decisive role in making synthetic speech natural and understandable because short pauses appear at its boundary. The variable break is defined as a break that is able to change easily from an AP to an MP boundary, or from an MP to an AP boundary. Using CART (Classification and Regression Trees), the variable break is modeled stochastically, and then we pre-select candidate units in the unit-selection process. As the experimental results show, it was possible to complement a break prediction error and improve the naturalness of synthetic speech.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.3992-3998
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• 2013

This paper is related to the method of adding a emotional speech corpus to a high-quality large corpus based speech synthesizer, and generating various synthesized speech. We made the emotional speech corpus as a form which can be used in waveform concatenated speech synthesizer, and have implemented the speech synthesizer that can be generated various synthesized speech through the same synthetic unit selection process of normal speech synthesizer. We used a markup language for emotional input text. Emotional speech is generated when the input text is matched as much as the length of intonation phrase in emotional speech corpus, but in the other case normal speech is generated. The BIs(Break Index) of emotional speech is more irregular than normal speech. Therefore, it becomes difficult to use the BIs generated in a synthesizer as it is. In order to solve this problem we applied the Variable Break[3] modeling. We used the Japanese speech synthesizer for experiment. As a result we obtained the natural emotional synthesized speech using the break prediction module for normal speech synthesize.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.89-105
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• 2008

In this paper, we suggest a rule-based system for the prediction of natural prosodic phrase breaks from Korean texts. For the implementation of the rule-based system, (1) sentence constituents are sub-categorized according to their syntactic functions, (2) syntactic phrases are recognized using the dependency relations among sub-categorized constituents, (3) rules for predicting prosodic phrase breaks are created. In addition, (4) the length of syntactic phrases and sentences, the position of syntactic phrases in a sentence, sense information of contextual words have been considered as to determine the variable prosodic phrase breaks. Based on these rules and features, we obtained the accuracy over 90% in predicting the position of major break and no break which have high correlation with the syntactic structure of the sentence. As for the overall accuracy in predicting the whole prosodic phrase breaks, the suggested system shows Break_Correct of 87.18% and Juncture Correct of 89.27% which is higher than that of other models.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.107-112
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• 1999

AMBIDEXTER(Advanced Molten-salt Break-even Inherently-safe Dual-mission Experimental & Test Reactor) 핵연료계통은 Th/$^{233U}$ 불화용융염으로 구성되어 있으며, 핵분열생성물질의 운전중 연속재처리가 가능하여 운전상태에 따라 원자로내 연료물질의 농도분포를 정확하게 계산하는 것은 원자로 설계에 있어 주요 기술이다.(중략)

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.645-651
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• 2004

For the connection of trans-continental railway network, it is critical to conquer the break-of-gauge problem at the borders in different countries. Up to now, the best solution seems to be the employ of the auto-changable gauge equipment. Countries, such as Russia, Japan are developing and commercializing auto-changable gauge equipment to maximize transport efficiency for the trans-continental network. The efforts to search a suitable logistical service are also underway. In this paper, technology and development trend of this equipment in several countries is indicated through inspecting and analyzing the historical and current situation of development, operating mechanism and technical problems. As the basic technology of auto-changeable gauge is not well developed in our country, the purpose of this study is to search an approach to fix the research direction, and find practical ways to international cooperation.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.680-686
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• 2004

Recently, the application of variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) to the high speed direct injection (HSDI) diesel engine has gained more and more interest in automotive industry. A steady state experimental investigation has been undertaken on a 1.5L HSDI diesel engine to verify the benefits of VGT comparing to the standard engine having a waste gate turbocharger (WGT). Specifically, part load performances (e.g., fuel economy and emission) have been investigated under various vane angles of the VGT. The results show that the real exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate as well as the pumping loss is very important to improve break specific fuel consumption (BSFC). It was previously known that the pumping loss only is a main parameter. In addition, the trade-off relationship between BSFC and NOx according to boost pressure, and the decreasing tendency of NOx with increasing real EGR rate have been verified. 1-D numerical analysis also has been performed, and the numerical results are in good agreement with experimental results.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.7-14
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• 2007

본 논문에서는 자연스러운 한국어 운율구 경계를 예측하기 위해 (1) 문장 성분을 하위범주화하고, (2) 세분화된 문장 성분 간 의존관계를 이용하여 통사구를 추출하며 (3) 추출한 통사구의 유형에 따른 운율구 경계 예측 규칙을 설정하였다. 또한, (4) 통사적 정보 외에도 통사구와 문장의 길이, 통사구의 문장 내 위치, 문맥의 의미 정보 등에 따라 가변적인 운율구 경계를 판단하여 보다 자연스러운 한국어 운율구 경계 예측 시스템을 개발하였다. 그 결과 통사구 경계와 상관 관계가 높은 강한 운율구 경계 예측과 운율구 내부 비경계 예측에 있어 90% 이상의 높은 재현율과 정확도를 보였으며, 전체 운율구 경계 예측에 있어서도 87% 이상의 성능을 보였다.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1730-1733
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• 2007

As semiconductor and MEMS devices become smaller, testing process during their production should follow such a high density trend. A circuit inspection tool "probe card" makes contact with electrode pads of the device under test (DUT). Nowadays, electrode pads are irregularly arranged and have height difference. In order to absorb variations in the heights of electrode pads and to generate contact loads, contact probes must have some levels of mechanical spring properties. Contact probes must also yield a force to break the surface native oxide layer or contamination layer on the electrodes to make electric contact. In this research, new vertical micro contact probe with bellows shape is developed to overcome shortage of prior work. Especially, novel bellows shape is used to reduce stress concentration in this design and stopper is used to change the stiffness of micro contact probe. Variable stiffness can be one solution to overcome the height difference of electrode pads.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 1999.10e
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• pp.184-190
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• 1999

본 논문에서는 Text-to-Speech 시스템에서 사용할 억양 모델을 위해 음성 DB에서 모델 파라미터와 피치 검색테이블(lookup-table)을 추출하여 미리 구성하고, 합성시에는 이를 추정하여 최종 F0 값을 생성하는 자료기반 접근방식(data-driven approach)을 사용한다. 어절 경계강도(break-index)는 경계강도의 특성에 따라 고정적 경계강도와 가변적 경계강도로 세분화하여 사용하였고, 예측된 경계강도를 기준으로 억양구(Intonation Phrase)와 액센트구(Accentual Phrase)를 설정하였다. 특히, 액센트구 모델은 인지적, 음향적으로 중요한 정점(peak)을 정확하게 모델링하는 것에 주안점을 두어 정점(peak)의 시간축, 주파수축 값과 이를 기준으로 한 앞뒤 기울기를 추정하여 4개의 파라미터로 설정하였고, 이 파라미터들은 CART(Classification and Regression Tree)를 이용하여 예측규칙을 만들었다. 경계음조가 나타나는 조사, 어미는 정규화된(normalized) 피치값과 key-index로 구성되는 검색테이블을 만들어 보다 정교하게 피치값을 예측하였다. 본 논문에서 제안한 억양 모델을 본 연구실에서 제작한 음성합성기를 통해 합성하여 청취실험을 거친 결과, 기존의 상용 Text-to-Speech 시스템에 비해 자연스러운 합성음을 얻을 수 있었다.