- Date: June 1, 2013
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - The results of the 2nd CHiME Speech Separation and Recognition Challenge are out! The team formed by MELCO researcher Yuuki Tachioka and MERL Speech & Audio team researchers Shinji Watanabe, Jonathan Le Roux and John Hershey obtained the best results in the continuous speech recognition task (Track 2). This very challenging task consisted in recognizing speech corrupted by highly non-stationary noises recorded in a real living room. Our proposal, which also included a simple yet extremely efficient denoising front-end, focused on investigating and developing state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition back-end techniques: feature transformation methods, as well as discriminative training methods for acoustic and language modeling. Our system significantly outperformed other participants. Our code has since been released as an improved baseline for the community to use.
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- Date & Time: Saturday, June 1, 2013; 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Location: Vancouver, Canada
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - MERL researchers Shinji Watanabe and Jonathan Le Roux are members of the organizing committee of CHiME 2013, the 2nd International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments, Jonathan acting as Program Co-Chair. MERL is also a sponsor for the event.
CHiME 2013 is a one-day workshop to be held in conjunction with ICASSP 2013 that will consider the challenge of developing machine listening applications for operation in multisource environments, i.e. real-world conditions with acoustic clutter, where the number and nature of the sound sources is unknown and changing over time. CHiME brings together researchers from a broad range of disciplines (computational hearing, blind source separation, speech recognition, machine learning) to discuss novel and established approaches to this problem. The cross-fertilisation of ideas will foster fresh approaches that efficiently combine the complementary strengths of each research field.
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- Date: June 1, 2013
Awarded to: Yuuki Tachioka, Shinji Watanabe, Jonathan Le Roux and John R. Hershey
Awarded for: "Discriminative Methods for Noise Robust Speech Recognition: A CHiME Challenge Benchmark"
Awarded by: International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments (CHiME)
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - The results of the 2nd 'CHiME' Speech Separation and Recognition Challenge are out! The team formed by MELCO researcher Yuuki Tachioka and MERL Speech & Audio team researchers Shinji Watanabe, Jonathan Le Roux and John Hershey obtained the best results in the continuous speech recognition task (Track 2). This very challenging task consisted in recognizing speech corrupted by highly non-stationary noises recorded in a real living room. Our proposal, which also included a simple yet extremely efficient denoising front-end, focused on investigating and developing state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition back-end techniques: feature transformation methods, as well as discriminative training methods for acoustic and language modeling. Our system significantly outperformed other participants. Our code has since been released as an improved baseline for the community to use.
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- Date: June 1, 2013
Where: International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments (CHiME)
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - The paper "Discriminative Methods for Noise Robust Speech Recognition: A CHiME Challenge Benchmark" by Tachioka, Y., Watanabe, S., Le Roux, J. and Hershey, J.R. was presented at the International Workshop on Machine Listening in Multisource Environments (CHiME).
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- Date & Time: Thursday, May 30, 2013; 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Location: Vancouver, Canada
MERL Contacts: Anthony Vetro; Petros T. Boufounos; Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - MERL is a sponsor for the first ICASSP Student Career Luncheon that will take place at ICASSP 2013. MERL members will take part in the event to introduce MERL and talk with students interested in positions or internships.
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- Date: May 26, 2013
Where: International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs (ISPSD)
MERL Contact: Koon Hoo Teo
Research Areas: Applied Physics, Electronic and Photonic Devices
Brief - The paper "Design of Enhancement Mode Single-gate and Double-gate Multi-channel GaN HEMT with Vertical Polarity Inversion Heterostructure" by Feng, P., Teo, K.H., Oishi, T., Yamanaka, K. and Ma, R. was presented at the International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs (ISPSD).
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- Date: May 26, 2013
Where: IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP)
MERL Contacts: Dehong Liu; Jianlin Guo; Anthony Vetro; Petros T. Boufounos; Jonathan Le Roux Brief - The papers "Stereo-based Feature Enhancement Using Dictionary Learning" by Watanabe, S. and Hershey, J.R., "Effectiveness of Discriminative Training and Feature Transformation for Reverberated and Noisy Speech" by Tachioka, Y., Watanabe, S. and Hershey, J.R., "Non-negative Dynamical System with Application to Speech and Audio" by Fevotte, C., Le Roux, J. and Hershey, J.R., "Source Localization in Reverberant Environments using Sparse Optimization" by Le Roux, J., Boufounos, P.T., Kang, K. and Hershey, J.R., "A Keypoint Descriptor for Alignment-Free Fingerprint Matching" by Garg, R. and Rane, S., "Transient Disturbance Detection for Power Systems with a General Likelihood Ratio Test" by Song, JX., Sahinoglu, Z. and Guo, J., "Disparity Estimation of Misaligned Images in a Scanline Optimization Framework" by Rzeszutek, R., Tian, D. and Vetro, A., "Screen Content Coding for HEVC Using Edge Modes" by Hu, S., Cohen, R.A., Vetro, A. and Kuo, C.C.J. and "Random Steerable Arrays for Synthetic Aperture Imaging" by Liu, D. and Boufounos, P.T. were presented at the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP).
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- Date & Time: Thursday, May 23, 2013; 12:00 PM
Speaker: Prof. Raquel Urtasun, TTI-Chicago
Research Area: Computer Vision
Abstract 
The development of autonomous systems that can effectively assist people with everyday tasks is one of the grand challenges in modern computer science. Notable examples are personal robotics for the elderly and people with disabilities, as well as autonomous driving systems which can help decrease fatalities caused by traffic accidents. To achieve full autonomy, multiple perception tasks must be solved: Autonomous systems should sense the environment, recognize the 3D world and interact with it. While most approaches have tackled individual perceptual components in isolation, I believe that the next generation of perceptual systems should reason jointly about multiple tasks.
In this talk I'll argue that there are four key aspects towards developing such holistic models: (i) learning, (ii) inference (iii) representation, and (iv) data. I'll describe efficient Markov random field learning and inference algorithms that exploit both the structure of the problem as well as parallel computation to achieve computational and memory efficiency. I'll demonstrate the effectiveness of our models on a wide variety of examples, and show representations and inference strategies that allow us to achieve state-of-the-art performance and result in several orders of magnitude speed-ups in a variety of challenging tasks, including 3D reconstruction, 3D layout parsing, object detection, semantic segmentation and free text exploitation for holistic visual recognition.
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- Date: Sunday, May 19, 2013 - Thursday, May 23, 2013
Location: Beijing, China
MERL Contact: Anthony Vetro Brief - Anthony Vetro is the Demo Co-chair of ISCAS 2013, the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits & Systems, to be held in Beijing, China, in May 2013.
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- Date: May 19, 2013
Where: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS)
MERL Contact: Anthony Vetro
Research Area: Digital Video
Brief - The paper "View Synthesis Prediction Using Skip and Merge Candidates for HEVC-based 3D Video Coding" by Zou, F., Tian, D. and Vetro, A. was presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS).
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- Date: May 15, 2013
Where: IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (WPTC)
MERL Contacts: Bingnan Wang; William S. Yerazunis; Koon Hoo Teo
Research Areas: Applied Physics, Electric Systems
Brief - The paper "Wireless Power Transfer with Artificial Magnetic Conductors" by Wu, J., Wang, B., Yerazunis, W.S. and Teo, K.H. was presented at the IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (WPTC).
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- Date: May 15, 2013
Where: Proceedings of IEEE
MERL Contacts: Bingnan Wang; William S. Yerazunis; Koon Hoo Teo Brief - The article "Wireless Power Transfer: Metamaterials and Array of Coupled Resonators" by Wang, B., Yerazunis, W. and Teo, K.H. was published in Proceedings of IEEE.
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- Date: May 14, 2013
Where: IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA)
Research Area: Computer Vision
Brief - The paper "Point-Plane SLAM for Hand-Held 3D Sensors" by Taguchi, Y., Jian, Y-D, Ramalingam, S. and Feng, C. was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA).
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- Date: May 8, 2013
Where: Conference on Telecommunications (Conftele)
MERL Contact: Anthony Vetro
Research Area: Digital Video
Brief - The paper "Analysis of Depth Map Resampling Filters for Depth-based 3D Video Coding" by Graziosi, D.B., Rodrigues, N.M.M., de Faria, S.M.M., Tian, D. and Vetro, A. was presented at the Conference on Telecommunications (Conftele).
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- Date & Time: Wednesday, May 8, 2013; 12:00 PM
Speaker: Vikrant Aute, University of Maryland
MERL Host: Christopher R. Laughman
Research Area: Data Analytics
Abstract 
Heat exchangers are a key component in any air-conditioning, heat pumping and refrigeration system. These heat exchangers (aka evaporators, condensers, indoor units, outdoor units) not only contribute significantly to the total cost of the system but also contain the most refrigerant charge. There is a continued interest in improving the designs of heat exchangers and making them more compact while reducing the cost. Compact heat exchangers help improve system performance, reduce power consumption and lower the first costs. Due to the lower internal volume, they hold lower refrigerant charge which in turn results in lower environmental impact.
In the simulation based design and optimization of compact heat exchangers, there are two main challenges. The first challenge arises from the use of computationally expensive analysis tools such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The second challenge is the effect of scales. The use of CFD tools can make the optimization infeasible due to computing and engineering resource limitations. Furthermore, during CFD analysis, certain simplifications are made to the computational domain such as simulating a small periodic segment of a given heat transfer surface. In this talk, three technologies are introduced that assist in addressing these issues. These technologies are (1) Approximation Assisted Optimization, (2) Parallel Parameterized CFD, and (3) Multi-scale modeling of heat exchangers. These technologies together help reduce the computational effort by more than 90% and engineering time by more than 50%. Two real world applications focusing on air-to-refrigerant and liquid-to-refrigerant heat exchangers will be discussed, that demonstrate the application of these technologies.
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- Date & Time: Tuesday, May 7, 2013; 2:30 PM
Speaker: Dr. Yotaro Kubo, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Abstract 
Kernel methods are important to realize both convexity in estimation and ability to represent nonlinear classification. However, in automatic speech recognition fields, kernel methods are not widely used conventionally. In this presentation, I will introduce several attempts to practically incorporate kernel methods into acoustic models for automatic speech recognition. The presentation will consist of two parts. The first part will describes maximum entropy discrimination and its application to a kernel machine training. The second part will describes dimensionality reduction of kernel-based features.
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- Date & Time: Friday, May 3, 2013; 12:00 PM
Speaker: Prof. Thrasyvoulos N. Pappas, Northwestern University
MERL Host: Anthony Vetro Abstract 
Texture is an important visual attribute both for human perception and image analysis systems. We present new structural texture similarity metrics and applications that critically depend on such metrics, with
emphasis on image compression and content-based retrieval. The new metrics account for human visual perception and the stochastic nature of textures. They rely entirely on local image statistics and allow substantial point-by-point deviations between textures that according to human judgment are similar or essentially identical.
We also present new testing procedures for objective texture similarity metrics. We identify three operating domains for evaluating the performance of such similarity metrics: the top of the similarity scale, where a monotonic relationship between metric values and subjective scores is desired; the ability to distinguish between perceptually similar and dissimilar textures; and the ability to retrieve "identical" textures. Each domain has different performance goals and requires different testing procedures. Experimental results similarity metrics demonstrate both the performance of the proposed metrics and the effectiveness of the proposed subjective testing procedures.
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- Date & Time: Thursday, May 2, 2013; 12:00 PM
Speaker: Ben Miller, MIT Abstract 
Graph theory provides an intuitive mathematical foundation for dealing with relational data, but there are numerous computational challenges in the detection of interesting behavior within small subsets of vertices, especially as the graphs grow larger and the behavior becomes more subtle. This presentation discusses computational considerations of a residuals-based subgraph detection framework, including the implications on inference with recent statistical models. We also present scaling properties, demonstrating analysis of a billion-vertex graph using commodity hardware.
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- Date: May 2, 2013
Where: International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
MERL Contact: Jonathan Le Roux
Research Area: Speech & Audio
Brief - The paper "Block Coordinate Descent for Sparse NMF" by Potluru, V.K., Plis, S.M., Le Roux, J., Pearlmutter, B.A., Calhoun, V.D. and Hayes, T.P. was presented at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).
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- Date: May 1, 2013
Where: Emerging Technologies for 3D Video: Creation, Coding, Transmission and Rendering
MERL Contact: Anthony Vetro
Research Area: Digital Video
Brief - The article "Depth Based 3D Video Formats and Coding Technology" by Vetro, A. and Muller, K. was published in the book Emerging Technologies for 3D Video: Creation, Coding, Transmission and Rendering.
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- Date & Time: Tuesday, April 23, 2013; 12:00 PM
Speaker: Prof. Joe Santos, MIT Sloan Abstract 
A "local innovation" and a "global innovation" should not be distinct because of their use or market (which could be universal or worldwide in both cases) but rather because of where they came to be: a "global innovation" is an innovation from the World; a "local innovation" is an innovation from one place. Most innovations around us, be it product innovations, technology or process innovations, and business model or strategy innovations, are "local". I will argue that as the World become more global, the likelihood and value of "local innovations" will diminish and that "global innovations" are fast becoming more relevant in shaping company performance. But "global innovations", unlike "local innovations", do not just occur through some mix of creativity, serendipity and entrepreneurship. The process of "global innovation" must be managed -- and this applies particularly to breakthrough innovations. My presentation demonstrates such propositions and covers the critical challenges faced by those who manage global innovation. I will also present some solutions from our research on this matter over the last fifteen years or so.
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- Date: April 8, 2013
Where: Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC)
MERL Contact: Stefano Di Cairano
Research Area: Control
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- Date: April 7, 2013
Where: IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC)
MERL Contacts: Philip V. Orlik; Jianlin Guo; Kieran Parsons
Research Area: Communications
Brief - The paper "Load Balanced Routing for Low Power and Lossy Networks" by Liu, X., Guo, J., Bhatti, G., Orlik, P. and Parsons, K. was presented at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC).
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- Date: April 1, 2013
Where: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
Research Area: Computer Vision
Brief - The article "Support Vector Shape: A Classifier Based Shape Representation" by Nguyen, H. V. and Porikli, F. was published in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
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- Date: March 25, 2013
Where: National Convention of the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ)
MERL Contacts: Hongbo Sun; Daniel N. Nikovski
Research Area: Data Analytics
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