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We have developed two different methods for using auditory, telephone speech to drive the movements of a synthetic face. In the first method, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) were trained on a phonetically transcribed telephone speech database. The output of the HMMs was then fed into a rulebased visual speech synthesizer as a string of phonemes together with time labels. In the second method, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) were trained on the same database to map acoustic parameters directly to facial control parameters. These target parameter trajectories were generated by using phoneme strings from a database as input to the visual speech synthesis The two methods were evaluated through audiovisual intelligibility tests with ten hearing impaired persons, and compared to "ideal" articulations (where no recognition was involved), a natural face, and to the intelligibility of the audio alone. It was found that the HMM method performs considerably better than the audio alone condition (54% and 34% keywords correct respectively), but not as well as the "ideal" articulating artificial face (64%). The intelligibility for the ANN method was 34% keywords correct.
The talking-head telephone, Synface, is a lip-reading support for people with hearing-impairment. It has been tested by 49 users with varying degrees of hearing-impaired in UK and Sweden in lab and home environments. Synface was found to give support to the users, especially in perceiving numbers and addresses and an enjoyable way to communicate. A majority deemed Synface to be a useful product.
This paper presents a setup which employs virtual animatedagents for robotic heads. The system uses a laser projector toproject animated faces onto a three dimensional face mask. This approach of projecting animated faces onto a three dimensional head surface as an alternative to using flat, two dimensional surfaces, eliminates several deteriorating effects and illusions that come with flat surfaces for interaction purposes, such as exclusive mutual gaze and situated and multi-partner dialogues. In addition to that, it provides robotic heads with a flexible solution for facial animation which takes into advantage the advancements of facial animation using computer graphics overmechanically controlled heads.
We describe in this paper a support client interface to the IP telephony application Skype. The system uses a variant of SynFace, a real-time speech reading support system using facial animation. The new interface is designed for the use by elderly persons, and tailored for use in systems supporting touch screens. The SynFace real-time facial animation system has previously shown ability to enhance speech comprehension for the hearing impaired persons. In this study weemploy at-home field studies on five subjects in the EU project MonAMI. We presentinsights from interviews with the test subjects on the advantages of the system, and onthe limitations of such a technology of real-time speech reading to reach the homesof elderly and the hard of hearing.
This study reports experimental results on the effect of visual prominence, presented as gestures, on speech intelligibility. 30 acoustically vocoded sentences, permutated into different gestural conditions were presented audio-visually to 12 subjects. The analysis of correct word recognition shows a significant increase in intelligibility when focally-accented (prominent) words are supplemented with head-nods or with eye-brow raise gestures. The paper also examines coupling other acoustic phenomena to brow-raise gestures. As a result, the paper introduces new evidence on the ability of the non-verbal movements in the visual modality to support audio-visual speech perception.
It has long been recognized that visual speech information is important for speech perception [McGurk and MacDonald 1976] [Summerfield 1992]. Recently there has been an increasing interest in the verbal and non-verbal interaction between the visual and the acoustic modalities from production and perception perspectives. One of the prosodic phenomena which attracts much focus is prominence. Prominence is defined as when a linguistic segment is made salient in its context.
This paper presents an approach to estimating word level prominence in Swedish using syllable level features. The paper discusses the mismatch problem of annotations between word level perceptual prominence and its acoustic correlates, context, and data scarcity. 200 sentences are annotated by 4 speech experts with prominence on 3 levels. A linear model for feature extraction is proposed on a syllable level features, and weights of these features are optimized to match word level annotations. We show that using syllable level features and estimating weights for the acoustic correlates to minimize the word level estimation error gives better detection accuracy compared to word level features, and that both features exceed the baseline accuracy.
This is a condensed presentation of some recent work on a back-projected robotic head for multi-party interaction in public settings. We will describe some of the design strategies and give some preliminary analysis of an interaction database collected at the Robotville exhibition at the London Science Museum
In this paper, we describe a project that explores a novel experi-mental setup towards building a spoken, multi-modally rich, and human-like multiparty tutoring robot. A human-robotinteraction setup is designed, and a human-human dialogue corpus is collect-ed. The corpus targets the development of a dialogue system platform to study verbal and nonverbaltutoring strategies in mul-tiparty spoken interactions with robots which are capable of spo-ken dialogue. The dialogue task is centered on two participants involved in a dialogueaiming to solve a card-ordering game. Along with the participants sits a tutor (robot) that helps the par-ticipants perform the task, and organizes and balances their inter-action. Differentmultimodal signals captured and auto-synchronized by different audio-visual capture technologies, such as a microphone array, Kinects, and video cameras, were coupled with manual annotations. These are used build a situated model of the interaction based on the participants personalities, their state of attention, their conversational engagement and verbal domi-nance, and how that is correlated with the verbal and visual feed-back, turn-management, and conversation regulatory actions gen-erated by the tutor. Driven by the analysis of the corpus, we will show also the detailed design methodologies for an affective, and multimodally rich dialogue system that allows the robot to meas-ure incrementally the attention states, and the dominance for each participant, allowing the robot head Furhat to maintain a well-coordinated, balanced, and engaging conversation, that attempts to maximize the agreement and the contribution to solve the task. This project sets the first steps to explore the potential of us-ing multimodal dialogue systems to build interactive robots that can serve in educational, team building, and collaborative task solving applications.
This project explores a novel experimental setup towards building spoken, multi-modally rich, and human-like multiparty tutoring agent. A setup is developed and a corpus is collected that targets the development of a dialogue system platform to explore verbal and nonverbal tutoring strategies in multiparty spoken interactions with embodied agents. The dialogue task is centered on two participants involved in a dialogue aiming to solve a card-ordering game. With the participants sits a tutor that helps the participants perform the task and organizes and balances their interaction. Different multimodal signals captured and auto-synchronized by different audio-visual capture technologies were coupled with manual annotations to build a situated model of the interaction based on the participants personalities, their temporally-changing state of attention, their conversational engagement and verbal dominance, and the way these are correlated with the verbal and visual feedback, turn-management, and conversation regulatory actions generated by the tutor. At the end of this chapter we discuss the potential areas of research and developments this work opens and some of the challenges that lie in the road ahead.
We introduce an approach to using animated faces for robotics where a static physical object is used as a projection surface for an animation. The talking head is projected onto a 3D physical head model. In this chapter we discuss the different benefits this approach adds over mechanical heads. After that, we investigate a phenomenon commonly referred to as the Mona Lisa gaze effect. This effect results from the use of 2D surfaces to display 3D images and causes the gaze of a portrait to seemingly follow the observer no matter where it is viewed from. The experiment investigates the perception of gaze direction by observers. The analysis shows that the 3D model eliminates the effect, and provides an accurate perception of gaze direction. We discuss at the end the different requirements of gaze in interactive systems, and explore the different settings these findings give access to.
Auditory prominence is defined as when an acoustic segment is made salient in its context. Prominence is one of the prosodic functions that has been shown to be strongly correlated with facial movements. In this work, we investigate the effects of facial prominence cues, in terms of gestures, when synthesized on animated talking heads. In the first study, a speech intelligibility experiment is conducted, speech quality is acoustically degraded and the fundamental frequency is removed from the signal, then the speech is presented to 12 subjects through a lip synchronized talking head carrying head-nods and eyebrows raise gestures, which are synchronized with the auditory prominence. The experiment shows that presenting prominence as facial gestures significantly increases speech intelligibility compared to when these gestures are randomly added to speech. We also present a follow-up study examining the perception of the behavior of the talking heads when gestures are added over pitch accents. Using eye-gaze tracking technology and questionnaires on 10 moderately hearing impaired subjects, the results of the gaze data show that users look at the face in a similar fashion to when they look at a natural face when gestures are coupled with pitch accents opposed to when the face carries no gestures. From the questionnaires, the results also show that these gestures significantly increase the naturalness and the understanding of the talking head.
In the four days of the Robotville exhibition at the London Science Museum, UK, during which the back-projected head Furhat in a situated spoken dialogue system was seen by almost 8 000 visitors, we collected a database of 10 000 utterances spoken to Furhat in situated interaction. The data collection is an example of a particular kind of corpus collection of human-machine dialogues in public spaces that has several interesting and specific characteristics, both with respect to the technical details of the collection and with respect to the resulting corpus contents. In this paper, we take the Furhat data collection as a starting point for a discussion of the motives for this type of data collection, its technical peculiarities and prerequisites, and the characteristics of the resulting corpus.
In this chapter, we investigate the effects of facial prominence cues, in terms of gestures, when synthesized on animated talking heads. In the first study a speech intelligibility experiment is conducted, where speech quality is acoustically degraded, then the speech is presented to 12 subjects through a lip synchronized talking head carrying head-nods and eyebrow raising gestures. The experiment shows that perceiving visual prominence as gestures, synchronized with the auditory prominence, significantly increases speech intelligibility compared to when these gestures are randomly added to speech. We also present a study examining the perception of the behavior of the talking heads when gestures are added at pitch movements. Using eye-gaze tracking technology and questionnaires for 10 moderately hearing impaired subjects, the results of the gaze data show that users look at the face in a similar fashion to when they look at a natural face when gestures are coupled with pitch movements opposed to when the face carries no gestures. From the questionnaires, the results also show that these gestures significantly increase the naturalness and helpfulness of the talking head.
In this paper, we present new results and comparisons of the real-time lips synchronized talking head SynFace on different Swedish databases and bandwidth. The work involves training SynFace on narrow-band telephone speech from the Swedish SpeechDat, and on the narrow-band and wide-band Speecon corpus. Auditory perceptual tests are getting established for SynFace as an audio visual hearing support for the hearing-impaired. Preliminary results show high recognition accuracy compared to other languages.
We will show in this demonstrator an advanced multimodal and multiparty spoken conversational system using Furhat, a robot head based on projected facial animation. Furhat is an anthropomorphic robot head that utilizes facial animation for physical robot heads using back-projection. In the system, multimodality is enabled using speech and rich visual input signals such as multi-person real-time face tracking and microphone tracking. The demonstrator will showcase a system that is able to carry out social dialogue with multiple interlocutors simultaneously with rich output signals such as eye and head coordination, lips synchronized speech synthesis, and non-verbal facial gestures used to regulate fluent and expressive multiparty conversations. The dialogue design is performed using the IrisTK [4] dialogue authoring toolkit developed at KTH. The system will also be able to perform a moderator in a quiz-game showing different strategies for regulating spoken situated interactions.
In this demonstrator we present the Furhat robot head. Furhat is a highly human-like robot head in terms of dynamics, thanks to its use of back-projected facial animation. Furhat also takes advantage of a complex and advanced dialogue toolkits designed to facilitate rich and fluent multimodal multiparty human-machine situated and spoken dialogue. The demonstrator will present a social dialogue system with Furhat that allows for several simultaneous interlocutors, and takes advantage of several verbal and nonverbal input signals such as speech input, real-time multi-face tracking, and facial analysis, and communicates with its users in a mixed initiative dialogue, using state of the art speech synthesis, with rich prosody, lip animated facial synthesis, eye and head movements, and gestures.
In this chapter, we first present a summary of findings from two previous studies on the limitations of using flat displays with embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in the contexts of face-to-face human-agent interaction. We then motivate the need for a three dimensional display of faces to guarantee accurate delivery of gaze and directional movements and present Furhat, a novel, simple, highly effective, and human-like back-projected robot head that utilizes computer animation to deliver facial movements, and is equipped with a pan-tilt neck. After presenting a detailed summary on why and how Furhat was built, we discuss the advantages of using optically projected animated agents for interaction. We discuss using such agents in terms of situatedness, environment, context awareness, and social, human-like face-to-face interaction with robots where subtle nonverbal and social facial signals can be communicated. At the end of the chapter, we present a recent application of Furhat as a multimodal multiparty interaction system that was presented at the London Science Museum as part of a robot festival,. We conclude the paper by discussing future developments, applications and opportunities of this technology.
SynFace is a lip-synchronized talking agent which is optimized as a visual reading support for the hearing impaired. In this paper wepresent the large scale hearing impaired user studies carried out for three languages in the Hearing at Home project. The user tests focuson measuring the gain in Speech Reception Threshold in Noise and the effort scaling when using SynFace by hearing impaired people, where groups of hearing impaired subjects with different impairment levels from mild to severe and cochlear implants are tested. Preliminaryanalysis of the results does not show significant gain in SRT or in effort scaling. But looking at large cross-subject variability in both tests, it isclear that many subjects benefit from SynFace especially with speech with stereo babble.
In this paper we present recent results on the development of the SynFace lip synchronized talking head towards multilinguality, varying signal conditions and noise robustness in the Hearing at Home project. We then describe the large scale hearing impaired user studies carried out for three languages. The user tests focus on measuring the gain in Speech Reception Threshold in Noise when using SynFace, and on measuring the effort scaling when using SynFace by hearing impaired people. Preliminary analysis of the results does not show significant gain in SRT or in effort scaling. But looking at inter-subject variability, it is clear that many subjects benefit from SynFace especially with speech with stereo babble noise.
The perception of gaze plays a crucial role in human-human interaction. Gaze has been shown to matter for a number of aspects of communication and dialogue, especially for managing the flow of the dialogue and participant attention, for deictic referencing, and for the communication of attitude. When developing embodied conversational agents (ECAs) and talking heads, modeling and delivering accurate gaze targets is crucial. Traditionally, systems communicating through talking heads have been displayed to the human conversant using 2D displays, such as flat monitors. This approach introduces severe limitations for an accurate communication of gaze since 2D displays are associated with several powerful effects and illusions, most importantly the Mona Lisa gaze effect, where the gaze of the projected head appears to follow the observer regardless of viewing angle. We describe the Mona Lisa gaze effect and its consequences in the interaction loop, and propose a new approach for displaying talking heads using a 3D projection surface (a physical model of a human head) as an alternative to the traditional flat surface projection. We investigate and compare the accuracy of the perception of gaze direction and the Mona Lisa gaze effect in 2D and 3D projection surfaces in a five subject gaze perception experiment. The experiment confirms that a 3Dprojection surface completely eliminates the Mona Lisa gaze effect and delivers very accurate gaze direction that is independent of the observer's viewing angle. Based on the data collected in this experiment, we rephrase the formulation of the Mona Lisa gaze effect. The data, when reinterpreted, confirms the predictions of the new model for both 2D and 3D projection surfaces. Finally, we discuss the requirements on different spatially interactive systems in terms of gaze direction, and propose new applications and experiments for interaction in a human-ECA and a human-robot settings made possible by this technology.
Back projecting a computer animated face, onto a three dimensional static physical model of a face, is a promising technology that is gaining ground as a solution to building situated, flexible and human-like robot heads. In this paper, we first briefly describe Furhat, a back projected robot head built for the purpose of multimodal multiparty human-machine interaction, and its benefits over virtual characters and robotic heads; and then motivate the need to investigating the contribution to speech intelligibility Furhat's face offers. We present an audio-visual speech intelligibility experiment, in which 10 subjects listened to short sentences with degraded speech signal. The experiment compares the gain in intelligibility between lip reading a face visualized on a 2D screen compared to a 3D back-projected face and from different viewing angles. The results show that the audio-visual speech intelligibility holds when the avatar is projected onto a static face model (in the case of Furhat), and even, rather surprisingly, exceeds it. This means that despite the movement limitations back projected animated face models bring about; their audio visual speech intelligibility is equal, or even higher, compared to the same models shown on flat displays. At the end of the paper we discuss several hypotheses on how to interpret the results, and motivate future investigations to better explore the characteristics of visual speech perception 3D projected faces.
In this paper, we present Furhat - a back-projected human-like robot head using state-of-the art facial animation. Three experiments are presented where we investigate how the head might facilitate human - robot face-to-face interaction. First, we investigate how the animated lips increase the intelligibility of the spoken output, and compare this to an animated agent presented on a flat screen, as well as to a human face. Second, we investigate the accuracy of the perception of Furhat's gaze in a setting typical for situated interaction, where Furhat and a human are sitting around a table. The accuracy of the perception of Furhat's gaze is measured depending on eye design, head movement and viewing angle. Third, we investigate the turn-taking accuracy of Furhat in a multi-party interactive setting, as compared to an animated agent on a flat screen. We conclude with some observations from a public setting at a museum, where Furhat interacted with thousands of visitors in a multi-party interaction.
We will show in this demonstrator an advanced multimodal and multiparty spoken conversational system using Furhat, a robot head based on projected facial animation. Furhat is a human-like interface that utilizes facial animation for physical robot heads using back-projection. In the system, multimodality is enabled using speech and rich visual input signals such as multi-person real-time face tracking and microphone tracking. The demonstrator will showcase a system that is able to carry out social dialogue with multiple interlocutors simultaneously with rich output signals such as eye and head coordination, lips synchronized speech synthesis, and non-verbal facial gestures used to regulate fluent and expressive multiparty conversations.
In this paper we study the production and perception of speech in diverse conditions for the purposes of accurate, flexible and highly intelligible talking face animation. We recorded audio, video and facial motion capture data of a talker uttering a,set of 180 short sentences, under three conditions: normal speech (in quiet), Lombard speech (in noise), and whispering. We then produced an animated 3D avatar with similar shape and appearance as the original talker and used an error minimization procedure to drive the animated version of the talker in a way that matched the original performance as closely as possible. In a perceptual intelligibility study with degraded audio we then compared the animated talker against the real talker and the audio alone, in terms of audio-visual word recognition rate across the three different production conditions. We found that the visual intelligibility of the animated talker was on par with the real talker for the Lombard and whisper conditions. In addition we created two incongruent conditions where normal speech audio was paired with animated Lombard speech or whispering. When compared to the congruent normal speech condition, Lombard animation yields a significant increase in intelligibility, despite the AV-incongruence. In a separate evaluation, we gathered subjective opinions on the different animations, and found that some degree of incongruence was generally accepted.
Motion capture of signs provides unique challenges in the field of multimodal data collection. The dense packaging of visual information requires high fidelity and high bandwidth of the captured data. Even though marker-based optical motion capture provides many desirable features such as high accuracy, global fitting, and the ability to record body and face simultaneously, it is not widely used to record finger motion, especially not for articulated and syntactic motion such as signs. Instead, most signing avatar projects use costly instrumented gloves, which require long calibration procedures. In this article, we evaluate the data quality obtained from optical motion capture of isolated signs from Swedish sign language with a large number of low-cost cameras. We also present a novel dual-sensor approach to combine the data with low-cost, five-sensor instrumented gloves to provide a recording method with low manual postprocessing. Finally, we evaluate the collected data and the dual-sensor approach as transferred to a highly stylized avatar. The application of the avatar is a game-based environment for training Key Word Signing (KWS) as augmented and alternative communication (AAC), intended for children with communication disabilities.
Automatic synthesis of realistic gestures promises to transform the fields of animation, avatars and communicative agents. In off-line applications, novel tools can alter the role of an animator to that of a director, who provides only high-level input for the desired animation; a learned network then translates these instructions into an appropriate sequence of body poses. In interactive scenarios, systems for generating natural animations on the fly are key to achieving believable and relatable characters. In this paper we address some of the core issues towards these ends. By adapting a deep learning-based motion synthesis method called MoGlow, we propose a new generative model for generating state-of-the-art realistic speech-driven gesticulation. Owing to the probabilistic nature of the approach, our model can produce a battery of different, yet plausible, gestures given the same input speech signal. Just like humans, this gives a rich natural variation of motion. We additionally demonstrate the ability to exert directorial control over the output style, such as gesture level, speed, symmetry and spacial extent. Such control can be leveraged to convey a desired character personality or mood. We achieve all this without any manual annotation of the data. User studies evaluating upper-body gesticulation confirm that the generated motions are natural and well match the input speech. Our method scores above all prior systems and baselines on these measures, and comes close to the ratings of the original recorded motions. We furthermore find that we can accurately control gesticulation styles without unnecessarily compromising perceived naturalness. Finally, we also demonstrate an application of the same method to full-body gesticulation, including the synthesis of stepping motion and stance.
This paper reports on the extraction and analysis of head nods taken from motion capture data of spontaneous dialogue in Swedish. The head nods were extracted automatically and then manually classified in terms of gestures having a beat function or multifunctional gestures. Prosodic features were extracted from syllables co-occurring with the beat gestures. While the peak rotation of the nod is on average aligned with the stressed syllable, the results show considerable variation in fine temporal synchronization. The syllables co-occurring with the gestures generally show greater intensity, higher F0, and greater F0 range when compared to the mean across the entire dialogue. A functional analysis shows that the majority of the syllables belong to words bearing a focal accent.
Speech and gesture co-occur in spontaneous dialogue in a highly complex fashion. There is a large variability in the motion that people exhibit during a dialogue, and different kinds of motion occur during different states of the interaction. A wide range of multimodal interface applications, for example in the fields of virtual agents or social robots, can be envisioned where it is important to be able to automatically identify gestures that carry information and discriminate them from other types of motion. While it is easy for a human to distinguish and segment manual gestures from a flow of multimodal information, the same task is not trivial to perform for a machine. In this paper we present a method to automatically segment and label gestural units from a stream of 3D motion capture data. The gestural flow is modeled with a 2-level Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model (HHMM) where the sub-states correspond to gesture phases. The model is trained based on labels of complete gesture units and self-adaptive manipulators. The model is tested and validated on two datasets differing in genre and in method of capturing motion, and outperforms a state-of-the-art SVM classifier on a publicly available dataset.
This paper reports on a method developed for extracting and analyzing head gestures taken from motion capture data of spontaneous dialogue in Swedish. Candidate head gestures with beat function were extracted automatically and then manually classified using a 3D player which displays timesynced audio and 3D point data of the motion capture markers together with animated characters. Prosodic features were extracted from syllables co-occurring with a subset of the classified gestures. The beat gestures show considerable variation in temporal synchronization with the syllables, while the syllables generally show greater intensity, higher F0, and greater F0 range when compared to the mean across the entire dialogue. Additional features for further analysis and automatic classification of the head gestures are discussed.
Passive optical motion capture is one of the predominant technologies for capturing high fidelity human skeletal motion, and is a workhorse in a large number of areas such as bio-mechanics, film and video games. While most state-of-the-art systems can automatically identify and track markers on the larger parts of the human body, the markers attached to fingers provide unique challenges and usually require extensive manual cleanup. In this work we present a robust online method for identification and tracking of passive motion capture markers attached to the fingers of the hands. The method is especially suited for large capture volumes and sparse marker sets of 3 to 10 markers per hand. Once trained, our system can automatically initialize and track the markers, and the subject may exit and enter the capture volume at will. By using multiple assignment hypotheses and soft decisions, it can robustly recover from a difficult situation with many simultaneous occlusions and false observations (ghost markers). We evaluate the method on a collection of sparse marker sets commonly used in industry and in the research community. We also compare the results with two of the most widely used motion capture platforms: Motion Analysis Cortex and Vicon Blade. The results show that our method is better at attaining correct marker labels and is especially beneficial for real-time applications.
It is envisioned that autonomous software agents that cancommunicate using speech and gesture will soon be oneverybody's computer screen. This paper describes anarchitecture that can be used to design and animate characterscapable of lip-synchronised synthetic speech as well as bodygestures, for use in for example spoken dialogue systems. Ageneral scheme for computationally efficient parametricdeformation of facial surfaces is presented, as well as techniques for generation of bimodal speech, facial expressionsand body gestures in a spoken dialogue system. Resultsindicating that an animated cartoon-like character can be asignificant contribution to speech intelligibility, are also reported.
A system for rule based audiovisual text-to-speech synthesishas been created. The system is based on the KTHtext-to-speech system which has been complementedwith a three-dimensional parameterized model of a humanface. The face can be animated in real time, synchronizedwith the auditory speech. The facial model iscontrolled by the same synthesis software as the auditoryspeech synthesizer. A set of rules that takes coarticulationinto account has been developed. The audiovisualtext-to-speech system has also been incorporated into aspoken man-machine dialogue system that is being developedat the department.
This thesis presents work in the area of computer-animatedtalking heads. A system for multimodal speech synthesis hasbeen developed, capable of generating audiovisual speechanimations from arbitrary text, using parametrically controlled3D models of the face and head. A speech-specific directparameterisation of the movement of the visible articulators(lips, tongue and jaw) is suggested, along with a flexiblescheme for parameterising facial surface deformations based onwell-defined articulatory targets.
To improve the realism and validity of facial and intra-oralspeech movements, measurements from real speakers have beenincorporated from several types of static and dynamic datasources. These include ultrasound measurements of tonguesurface shape, dynamic optical motion tracking of face pointsin 3D, as well as electromagnetic articulography (EMA)providing dynamic tongue movement data in 2D. Ultrasound dataare used to estimate target configurations for a complex tonguemodel for a number of sustained articulations. Simultaneousoptical and electromagnetic measurements are performed and thedata are used to resynthesise facial and intra-oralarticulation in the model. A robust resynthesis procedure,capable of animating facial geometries that differ in shapefrom the measured subject, is described.
To drive articulation from symbolic (phonetic) input, forexample in the context of a text-to-speech system, bothrule-based and data-driven articulatory control models havebeen developed. The rule-based model effectively handlesforward and backward coarticulation by targetunder-specification, while the data-driven model uses ANNs toestimate articulatory parameter trajectories, trained ontrajectories resynthesised from optical measurements. Thearticulatory control models are evaluated and compared againstother data-driven models trained on the same data. Experimentswith ANNs for driving the articulation of a talking headdirectly from acoustic speech input are also reported.
A flexible strategy for generation of non-verbal facialgestures is presented. It is based on a gesture libraryorganised by communicative function, where each function hasmultiple alternative realisations. The gestures can be used tosignal e.g. turn-taking, back-channelling and prominence whenthe talking head is employed as output channel in a spokendialogue system. A device independent XML-based formalism fornon-verbal and verbal output in multimodal dialogue systems isproposed, and it is described how the output specification isinterpreted in the context of a talking head and converted intofacial animation using the gesture library.
Through a series of audiovisual perceptual experiments withnoise-degraded audio, it is demonstrated that the animatedtalking head provides significantly increased intelligibilityover the audio-only case, in some cases not significantly belowthat provided by a natural face.
Finally, several projects and applications are presented,where the described talking head technology has beensuccessfully employed. Four different multimodal spokendialogue systems are outlined, and the role of the talkingheads in each of the systems is discussed. A telecommunicationapplication where the talking head functions as an aid forhearing-impaired users is also described, as well as a speechtraining application where talking heads and languagetechnology are used with the purpose of improving speechproduction in profoundly deaf children.
This paper deals with the problem of modelling the dynamics of articulation for a parameterised talkinghead based on phonetic input. Four different models are implemented and trained to reproduce the articulatorypatterns of a real speaker, based on a corpus of optical measurements. Two of the models, ("Cohen-Massaro"and "O¨ hman") are based on coarticulation models from speech production theory and two are based on artificialneural networks, one of which is specially intended for streaming real-time applications. The different models areevaluated through comparison between predicted and measured trajectories, which shows that the Cohen-Massaromodel produces trajectories that best matches the measurements. A perceptual intelligibility experiment is alsocarried out, where the four data-driven models are compared against a rule-based model as well as an audio-alonecondition. Results show that all models give significantly increased speech intelligibility over the audio-alone case,with the rule-based model yielding highest intelligibility score.
In human-human communication, eye gaze is a fundamental cue in e.g. turn-taking and interaction control [Kendon 1967]. Accurate control of gaze direction is therefore crucial in many applications of animated avatars striving to simulate human interactional behaviors. One inherent complication when conveying gaze direction through a 2D display, however, is what has been referred to as the Mona Lisa effect; if the avatar is gazing towards the camera, the eyes seem to "follow" the beholder whatever vantage point he or she may assume [Boyarskaya and Hecht 2010]. This becomes especially problematic in applications where multiple persons are interacting with the avatar, and the system needs to use gaze to address a specific person. Introducing 3D structure in the facial display, e.g. projecting the avatar face on a face mask, makes the percept of the avatar's gazechange with the viewing angle, as is indeed the case with real faces. To this end, [Delaunay et al. 2010] evaluated two back-projected displays - a spherical "dome" and a face shaped mask. However, there may be many factors influencing gaze directionpercieved from a 3D facial display, so an accurate calibration procedure for gaze directionis called for.
Spoken face to face interaction is a rich and complex form of communication that includes a wide array of phenomena thatare not fully explored or understood. While there has been extensive studies on many aspects in face-to-face interaction, these are traditionally of a qualitative nature, relying on hand annotated corpora, typically rather limited in extent, which is a natural consequence of the labour intensive task of multimodal data annotation. In this paper we present a corpus of 60 hours of unrestricted Swedish face-to-face conversations recorded with audio, video and optical motion capture, and we describe a new project setting out to exploit primarily the kinetic data in this corpus in order to gain quantitative knowledge on humanface-to-face interaction.
Our recent work within the research projectSIMULEKT (Simulating Intonational Varieties of Swedish) involves a pilot perceptiontest, used for detecting tendencies in humanclustering of Swedish dialects. 30 Swedishlisteners were asked to identify the geographical origin of 72 Swedish native speakers by clicking on a map of Sweden. Resultsindicate for example that listeners from thesouth of Sweden are generally better at recognizing some major Swedish dialects thanlisteners from the central part of Sweden.
Our recent work within the research project SIMULEKT (Simulating Intonational Varieties of Swedish) includes two approaches. The first involves a pilot perception test, used for detecting tendencies in human clustering of Swedish dialects. 30 Swedish listeners were asked to identify the geographical origin of Swedish native speakers by clicking on a map of Sweden. Results indicate for example that listeners from the south of Sweden are better at recognizing some major Swedish dialects than listeners from the central part of Sweden, which includes the capital area. The second approach concerns a method for modelling intonation using the newly developed SWING (Swedish INtonation Generator) tool, where annotated speech samples are resynthesized with rule based intonation and audiovisually analysed with regards to the major intonational varieties of Swedish. We consider both approaches important in our aim to test and further develop the Swedish prosody model.
ABSTRACTThis paper describes a first attempt at synthesis and evaluation of expressive visualarticulation using an MPEG-4 based virtual talking head. The synthesis is data-driven,trained on a corpus of emotional speech recorded using optical motion capture. Eachemotion is modelled separately using principal component analysis and a parametriccoarticulation model.In order to evaluate the expressivity of the data driven synthesis two tests wereconducted. Our talking head was used in interactions with a human being in a givenrealistic usage context.The interactions were presented to external observers that were asked to judge theemotion of the talking head. The participants in the experiment could only hear the voice ofthe user, which was a pre-recorded female voice, and see and hear the talking head. Theresults of the evaluation, even if constrained by the results of the implementation, clearlyshow that the visual expression plays a relevant role in the recognition of emotions.
This paper reports the results of a preliminary cross-evaluation experiment run in the framework of the European research project PF-Star(1), with the double I aim of evaluating the possibility of exchanging FAP data between the involved sites and assessing the-adequacy of the emotional facial gestures performed by talking heads. The results provide initial insights in the way people belonging to various cultures-react to natural and synthetic facial expressions produced in different cultural settings, and in the potentials and limits of FAP data exchange.
We present our current state of development regarding animated agents applicable to affective dialogue systems. A new set of tools are under development to support the creation of animated characters compatible with the MPEG-4 facial animation standard. Furthermore, we have collected a multimodal expressive speech database including video, audio and 3D point motion registration. One of the objectives of collecting the database is to examine how emotional expression influences articulatory patterns, to be able to model this in our agents. Analysis of the 3D data shows for example that variation in mouth width due to expression greatly exceeds that due to vowel quality.
The aim of this paper is to present the multimodal speech corpora collected at KTH, in the framework of the European project PF-Star, and discuss some of the issues related to the analysis and implementation of human communicative and emotional visual correlates of speech in synthetic conversational agents. Two multimodal speech corpora have been collected by means of an opto-electronic system, which allows capturing the dynamics of emotional facial expressions with very high precision. The data has been evaluated through a classification test and the results show promising identification rates for the different acted emotions. These multimodal speech corpora will truly represent a valuable source to get more knowledge about how speech articulation and communicative gestures are affected by the expression of emotions.
We describe the ongoing Swedish speech database project Spontal: Multimodal database of spontaneous speech in dialog (VR 2006-7482). The project takes as its point of departure the fact that both vocal signals and gesture involving the face and body are important in every-day, face-to-face communicative interaction, and that there is a great need for data with which we more precisely measure these.


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Tagged: Carl Crawford
ALCS game 4 – Wow, just wow
I just don't know how we are doing this. I mean, I know this Rays team is good – very, very good – but still, this is the first ever postseason for most of them, and they're playing at Fenway against the been there, done that, got the t-shirt Red Sox. The defending World Champion Red Sox.
But man, are we playing some good baseball. And while the Sox are most definitely not out of it yet – their ALCS comebacks of recent years are still fresh in the memory – if we can carry on pitching, hitting and fielding like we have in the last few games, then there is no reason why the first pitch of the World Series couldn't be thrown at Tropicana Field. We need one win in the next three games to get there. That is a scary thought.
Now I am stupidly tired this morning (game finished at 4.18AM, I went to bed and set my alarm for 8AM…), but I don't care. Last night's game was totally worth it. Three hours and seven minutes of pure Rays-world joy…
ALDS game 4 – "He is a winner"
Andy Sonnanstine over Edwin Jackson?
I think it would be fair to say that there are not many managers in the big leagues that would make that call. Fortunately for the Rays, Joe Maddon is one of them.
So it was Sonny who went last night in Chicago for game 4, and by the time he left with two outs in the 6th, Joe Maddon was once again looking like the smartest man in baseball. Ok, so 5 2/3 innings isn't the longest outing of the season, and he did give up 2 homeruns. But the way he was pitching, it was almost as if those homers were peace offerings so the White Sox hitters didn't feel too bad about getting totally out-played by a man who doesn't trouble 90 on the radar gun…
ALDS game 2 – Perseverance, thy name is Rays
Scott Kazmir was asked in the lead up to yesterday's game which Scott Kazmir would show up for game 2 of the American League Division Series.
"Hopefully the good Scott Kazmir"
Uh-huh. With the bases loaded and nobody out in the top of the first, the good Scott Kazmir was looking like a distant dream. (Just for the record, I don't agree with Harold Reynolds' assertion that Kaz hit leadoff man Orlando Cabrera on purpose in retaliation for Thursday's war of words. I think it was a pure lack of control early on.).
By the time Scotty K had gotten out of the first, he had thrown 37 pitches and faced 8 White Sox hitters. The good (nay, amazing) news was that he had limited them to just two runs…
ALDS game 1 – Welcome to the postseason Mr Longoria
I'm willing to bet that there's not many people out there who had remembered that Gary Gaetti hit homeruns in each of his first two postseason at-bats.
Something tells me that you're going to remember that Evan did it.
Because this 22-year-old rookie is a bit special. I mean, he missed a whole month of the season through injury, yet still led all rookies in homeruns. He hit three longballs in one game, just a couple of weeks after his return from a fractured wrist. And now this.
First pitch – homerun. Third pitch – homerun. Then an RBI single, a walk and just for good measure a stolen base. Just your average sort of day when your name is Evan Longoria…
Today's the day
Actually, scrub that and start again. Today is the Rays' day.
(This entry is cross-posted in full from my blog's main home HERE)
No matter which way you look at it, today is all about the Rays. The story is well known by now, but it still trumps all the others, at least in my (biased!) view. No offence to the other playoff contenders, who have all earned the right to take their shot at the ultimate goal, but the Rays are the story. Manny reinvigorating the Dodgers? Meh. Phillies' first playoff win in 15 years? Who cares. Brewers's first playoff appearance in 26 years? Nice, but still. Both Chicago teams in the post-season since, well since before Wrigley (and thats saying something!). Good, but not all that. The Angels and the Red Sox? Pfft, seen it all before.
But the Rays?
10 years of misery, and a break-out like never before. 9 last place finishes and one fourth place. A best of 70 wins, and an average of 97 losses. No fans, no wins, no hope. Right?
The past few years, I've watched a couple of hundred or so Rays games on TV (well, the internet). And I've been to one Rays game live (a 4-3 defeat to Seattle at Safeco back in 2003, in case you haven't read my profile!). I've seen a good deal of pretty bad baseball. Sure, I've seen some excitement, some young talent and a few big wins. But mostly I've seen losing. Lots of losing. Lots and lots and lots of losing. With no end in sight.
At least I have the opportunity to turn my computer off and forget about things. If I don't want to know whats happening in the world of baseball, I simply don't go to my bookmarked baseball websites for a while, and I'm completely in the dark.
But the fans in Tampa and St Pete? They've had 10 years of losing. And 10 years of everybody, every newspaper, every magazine, every TV report reminding them of the losing. It doesn't worry me that attendances at the Trop are so low, it amazes me that they're still so high. I've sat through plenty of bad football (soccer) in my time, and I know that watching losing is not fun. So for the season-ticket holders who have sat through everything thats gone on at the Trop over the Ray's first decade have nothing but my respect.
And now they have their reward. For their patience, their belief and their support. As excited as I am about today, I can only imagine what it is like for the good people of Tampa and St Pete. This is their day. They've earned it.
I haven't written anything since Monday, and for once its not because I've been too busy. Its because I literally don't know where to start. This week I must have read over 100 articles on the Rays combined between the St Pete Times, the Rays' site and ESPN. Not to mention the random ones that crop up in the various other baseball related sites I visit. This is how big this week is – the Rays have even had a mention on the BBC website. Wow.
And now, with 6 hours to go until James Shields makes a little bit of Rays' history, I still don't know where to start. The rotation is set. The lineup is set. The roster is (more-or-less) set. The White Sox are in town. Playoff baseball is about to hit St Pete.
It's a strange feeling that I have right now. I mean, excitement and anticipation are the overriding things, but thats not all there is to it. There's the hope – we could go all the way. There's the fear – what if we fade without a trace. And there's the confusion – what should I be expecting? Should I be reckoning on a month's worth of games, or will it be all over this weekend. I mean, I want us to win it all, I don't think there's any reason that we can't win it all – but at the same time I don't want to be disappointed if we fall at the first hurdle. This is a young team, who have already outperformed all expectations. There's no reason they can't continue to do that. But if they don't, then I don't want to criticise, I want to celebrate them getting even this far. Its not an easy balance to maintain.
So I've decided. When its all over, I'm going to look back on the season as one of triumph and success. But for now I'm treating it the only way that a playoff team's fan (and isn't that an unusually feeling) can. The only outcome is a World Series win. That's what I'm gunning for, because that's what the Rays are gunning for. We're in it to win it.
And the quest starts with the ball in the hands of James Shields. Of the guys on the Rays rotation, he probably has about the fourth-best pure stuff. But he is the ace. He has earned that mantle. As much as I love Kaz, and as good as Garza is going to be, Shields is the right person to start this all off. Scotty K will get game 2, Matt Garza game 3, and, if we get that far, Andy Sonnanstine will start in game 4. While the first three were no-brainers for Joe Maddon, the last choice was anything but. Both Sonny and Edwin Jackson have been inconsistant at times this year, but for the most part excellent. Ultimately, I think Sonny is the right choice – but that doesn't make it any easier on E-Jax, especially because he won't be in the 'pen either. Missing out on the roster altogether after the huge contrubution he has given this year is a tough pill to swallow. But unfortunately Joe's decided to go with a 6-man bullpen, and Edwin is just a little too inconsistant in relief to be relied on. I feel bad for E-Jax, gutted even, but you never know – fate is a strange thing and he may yet have a role to play for the Rays this year.
Also missing out on a job in the 'pen are (and as I write this is still unconfirmed) Jason Hammel and Troy Percival. Perhaps neither decision is a surprise, but both are tough ones. Hammel could not make a claim to be the most talented pitcher the Rays have. But he has come up big on more than one occasion this year, while playing the crucial mop-up role out of the 'pen. And then there's Perci. I don't have anything that I can really add to the debate on Troy, other than to say that leaving him off (if indeed it is the case) must be about the most difficult decision that Joe Maddon has had to make all year. Perci was awesome in the first half. He was injured and ineffective in the second half. He's looked back to strength his last couple of appearances. But to back him would be, especially in a 6-man 'pen, a huge risk. For the first round at least maybe it was just too big a risk for Joe. Perci is the ultimate pro – he'll be disappointed, maybe even angry, but I'm sure that it'll make him work even harder, just in case he is needed later on.
The hitters missing out on the post-season are less of a surprise. Jonny Gomes, Justin Ruggiano, John Jaso, Dan Johnson. All had a part to play in us getting here, but none can have been expecting to make the final cut. Guys, thanks for your effort, and stay sharp just in case.
The biggest news among the hitters is, of course, the news on our starting leftfielder for game one. Almost defying the odds, it will be Carl Crawford. I cannot begin to tell you how happy that makes me. Not just because, even having a down year, CC is one of the best outfielders in baseball, but because if anybody deserves to be on the field for the Rays' first ever playoff game, it is him. He's been here all through the bad times, and now, just as much as the fans do, he deserves a share of the good. Plus I'm sure that there isn't a manager in baseball who would rather face a lineup with CC in it that one without.
The starting lineup today will be, for almost the first time I can remember, at full strength. Aki (2B) leading off, followed by BJ Upton (CF), Pena (1B), Longoria (3B), CC (LF), Cliff Floyd (DH), Dioner Navarro (C), Gabe Gross (RF) and Jason Bartlett (SS). Its fair to say that I'm pretty confident in that bunch of players right there.
The players on the roster who I haven't mentioned are: Ben Zobrist, Willy Aybar, Eric Hinske, Rocco Baldelli, Fernando Perez and Michel Hernandez (hitters); and Chad Bradford, Dan Wheeler, JP Howell, Grant Balfour, Trever Miller and David Price (pitchers). Yep, David Price. He has come. What role will he play in the post-season? Possibly a big one. I wouldn't have a problem giving him the ball in whatever situation, and I don't think Maddon will either. And in my opinion (one that I am sure is shared with everyone who has watched the Rays in September) keeping Perez on the roster could prove a master-stroke. His speed on the basepaths and in the field is scary, but he's shown a very welcome knack of timely hitting as well. Keep an eye on him.
Right, well thats a long and rambling post even by my standards, but like I said, I'm excited. So I think I can be excused.
I'm sure I will have more to say tomorrow morning, either applauding victory, or staying positive in defeat. In the meantime – James Shields, 2.30pm ET. Watch it happen. 9=8. And, I hope, 9=4.
Banged up, but not giving up
What a week.
I literally don't know where to start.
I mean, if something could happen it has happened. Comebacks, injuries, improbable heroes, trades, demotions – you name it and the Rays have experienced it since I last wrote a proper entry a week ago. Unbelieveable.
And, on top of it all, we've somehow managed to increase our lead at the top of the AL East to 4 1/2 games over the Red Sox and 8 1/2 on the Yankees. And we did that by recording our franchise-record 71st win of the season. But more on that in a bit. Probably…
The rookie marches on
So, the Tigers have had to wait until August to get a firsthand look at Evan Longoria. Two games into the series, and I think that it is fair to say that they now believe the hype. He followed up a homerun on Friday night with a 3-5, 3 RBI effort last night, including his team-high 21st homerun of the season, a number that ties Jonny Gomes' team rookie record. He obviously continued his sharp play in the field as well, and swiped his seventh base of the season to boot. If you haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet, then seriously, whats stopping you?!
That steal came on the back-end of a double steal, led by Carl Crawford – his first stolen base for 18 games. But while he hasn't been swiping much of late, CC has found his bat stroke a bit more, not to mention his wheels out of the batters box. He tripled on friday night, to make it 5 three-baggers in 6 games, and move his AL-high mark to 10. I've said it before, but there is no play in baseball that is more fun to watch than CC flying around the bases on his way to a triple…

subset: commoncrawl


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Click here to download our standard warranty.... in standard English. We kept it simple and short so you don't have to employ your legal council to understand the document.
Here's where you can register your AirPac air conditioner. Completing your warranty registration will allow AirPac to keep you informed on product changes new offerings.


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Full height windows light up the stairway behind this stone element.
Opposite the entry is the three car garage with unfished space that could be used for a number of functions. (i.e. additional bedroom with a bathroom, office, gameroom, etc.)
This 5,500 s.f. residence has 4 bedrooms and 4-1/2 baths. The entry porch is protected by a deep gable end roof held up with 12″X12″ RS Cedar columns.
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ESDG Cordillera Residence, Lot 14 ES, Ranch at Cordillera, Eagle County, CO; 5,700 s.f.; 1999. Contractor: Groshire Development.


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Comcast To Shift From Broadband Caps To Usage-Based Pricing
Comcast will eliminate the 250-Gigabyte monthly broadband-usage limit on Xfinity Internet, moving over time instead to a usage-based pricing model that will provide at least 300 GB of data usage before customers incur additional charges, the operator said Thursday.
The cable operator is making the change after it was criticized by competitors and public-interest groups for allowing unlimited usage of its IP video-on-demand service on Xbox 360, while applying usage of other Internet-video services to the cap.
"[I]n recent weeks, some of the conversation around our new product introductions focused on our data usage threshold, rather than on the exciting opportunities we are offering our customers," Cathy Avgiris, Comcast's executive vice president and general manager of Communications and Data Services, wrote in a blog post.
Comcast will "replace our static 250 GB usage threshold with more flexible data usage management approaches that benefit consumers and support innovation and that will continue to ensure that all of our customers enjoy the best possible Internet experience over our high-speed data service," Avgiris said.
In the next few months, the MSO will test least two usage-based pricing approaches in different markets. Comcast did not provide details about timing or locations.
Comcast's first new approach will offer a 300-GB usage allotment for Internet Essentials, Economy and Performance tiers, and with increasing data allotments for each successive tier of high speed data service (e.g., Blast and Extreme). The "very few customers" who use more data at each tier can buy additional Gigabytes in increments; for example, $10 for 50 GB, according to Avgiris.
The second approach will increase data-usage thresholds for all tiers to 300 GB per month and also offer additional gigabytes in increments (e.g., $10 per 50 GB).
With the changes, Comcast subscribers will be able to access an "effectively unlimited amount of usage, because they will be able to buy and use as much data as they want," executive vice president David Cohen said on a call with reporters Thursday.
As far as the rationale for the change, Cohen said, "It's a matter of messaging, rather than capacity. We just didn't like the message we were sending to consumers, that they had a static, 250-Gigabyte cap."
For both approaches, Comcast will increase the initial data-usage threshold to at least 300 GB per month. In markets where Comcast will not be trialing a new data usage management approach, the company will suspend enforcement of its current usage cap, "although we will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage," Avgiris noted.
She continued, "Our goal with this improved approach, these consumer trials, and our continued investment in our network is to create products that meet the needs of all of our residential customers (even the heaviest users) and provide everyone with a choice."
Last week, Netflix argued in a presentation to Federal Communications Commission staff that Comcast's Xfinity TV app for Xbox -- as well as Time Warner Cable's TWC TV iPad app and AT&T's U-verse on Xbox -- violated the commission's network neutrality regulations.
The video-rental company told the FCC that the operators' policy of exempting their own video services from usage caps -- while metering Internet-delivered video services such as Netflix's -- is "economically irrational or anticompetitive," and contrary to the FCC's Open Internet order.
Comcast chief technology officer Tony Werner responded earlier this week, disputing that the VOD-on-Xbox service is "prioritized" over Internet traffic. According to Werner, because the VOD in this case is delivered over the MSO's private network over a separate, dedicated IP flow, the service complies with all FCC regulations and the Department of Justice's consent decree in the NBCUniversal deal.
Comcast first introduced the 250 GB cap on all broadband users in October 2008. According to the MSO, only a very few subscribers have even come close to hitting that limit. The median monthly data usage among Comcast subscribers is 8 to 10 GB, according to Avgiris.
Other Internet service providers that have established monthly usage caps for broadband customers include AT&T, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Suddenlink Communications. Charter and Cox do not charge customers overage fees for exceeding monthly limits, while AT&T and Suddenlink do.
In addition to Netflix, a Sony executive, speaking at an industry conference this month, claimed that the CE manufacturer had considered introducing a broadband TV service -- but that it had held off because of Comcast's bandwidth caps and its policy of exempting usage on the Xfinity TV app on Xbox.
Avgiris, in her blog post, said the purpose of the data-usage cap was "simply to ensure that all of our customers were treated fairly and had a consistent and superior experience while using our high-speed data service... We've never had any intention to limit the lawful use of the Internet or restrict our customers' ability to view online video."
During Comcast's pilot tests of the usage-based pricing models, "we will be transparent to our customers," Avgiris said. "We will provide our customers with the information they need to select the service level and options appropriate to their needs, including providing our customers the tools necessary to manage their use of our high-speed Internet service."
Comcast will continue to exempt usage of the Xfinity TV app for Xbox from bandwidth-consumption limits, but executives said traffic from the Skype on Xfinity service, which the MSO introduced this week, will count toward usage because it traverses the public Internet. All other Internet traffic, including video from XfinityTV.com and the Xfinity TV mobile apps, will also apply toward total usage.
Cohen, regarding Netflix's complaint that Comcast was unfairly treating its own VOD on Xbox differently from Internet video services, said "it is a real stretch to create a discrimination argument. Even Netflix, on its earnings call, acknowledged that a static 250 Gig didn't get into its way.... It's going to be a stretch that we haven't transitioned to an approach that is significantly pro-consumer and pro-innovation."
Cohen said that the change was not in anticipation of the company transitioning its own video service from traditional delivery to an over-the-top model, saying the company had no plans for such a migration.


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Communication kit
Welcome to the communication kit of Solar Team Twente! The aim? You can let the world know that you are a proud supporter of Solar Team Twente, whereby you are investing in talent development, innovation, sustainability and technology. Besides, it is always good for Solar Team Twente to get a bit of extra attention. We hope to get more out of our partnership. This communication kit will be updated every 25th of the month with upcoming events, blogs, vlogs and news.
This section contains both the upcoming events and the general, monthly calendar. The 'Upcoming events' will be regularly updated.
Upcoming events
Click to expand
10th of July 2017 - Flying RED Challenge
On the 10th of July the Flying RED Challenge will take place. The Flying RED Challenge is a new challenge set up by Solar Team Twente in which Dutch and German schools compete against each other in a challenge to build the best solar RC plane. This year's participants are Bonhoeffer College from Enschede and Engelbert-Kaempfer-Gymnasium from Lemgo.
During the challenge on the 10th of July the planes will search for all the previous solar cars from the history of Solar Team Twente. The cars will be spread out in the area around Marknesse. Every time a team finds a solar car, they will receive a hint to solve a case. When the children have solved the case with the help of these hints, it is time to unveil the new car of Solar Team Twente.
We facilitate the schools with the needed solar cells, knowledge and in setting up to join the challenge. This way we hope to invest in the future, inspire the future generations and promote engineering in every layer of education.
This challenge is made possible by NLR, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Techniekpact Twente.
4th-6th of August - Race Simulation
During this 3-day event the team and all external members will simulate the racing scenarios that could happen in Australia. Everything will be tested: from a wheel change to driving the right strategy. The simulation will be set up by team members from previous solar teams, as they have the required experience regarding what we might find on our way through the Australian Outback.
This year the simulation will take place on a track near Doetinchem that is not entirely closed off. This means that during the simulation we will partly be driving on public roads. This brings an added layer of realism as the race will also take place on public roads.
End of August - Departure to Australia
8th-15th of October - Bridgestone World Solar Challenge
The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is a bi-yearly race for cars driving purely on solar energy. The race crosses right through the Australian Outback, from Darwin (north) to Adelaide (south). The race spans across 3000 km of public roads posing numerous challenges along the way. The race is all about being the first to cross the finish line, but having the fastest solar car is not a guarantee for victory. Having a strategy that takes weather, energy income and output, road conditions and traffic into account is of vital importance.
The race takes place on several days as the solar cars drive from 8:00 to 17:00. This year's theme of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is 'Take on the Dutch'. This is the result of last edition's performances by the Dutch teams, as all three Dutch teams finished on top in the final standings.
Goal of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge: The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge promotes sustainable transportation. Hans Tholstrup and Larry Perkins drove in 1982 from west to east Australia in their self-build solar car. This was the inspiration to encourage others to find the limits of solar powered transportation. Participating teams are challenged to design a car that drives 3000 kilometers in a maximum of 6 days purely on solar energy. By changing the regulations almost every edition, technological innovations are stimulated in the participating teams.
Challenger class: Solar Team Twente participates in the Challenger class. The solar cars in this class are designed for efficiency. The winner of the Challenger class is the team that is the first to complete the entire route with their solar car.
Participants: More than fourty teams from all around the globe participate in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. There are for example several teams from Europe, America, Indonesia, Japan and Arabia.
Hashtags: #BWSCtakeonthedutch #TakeOnTheDutch #BWSC17
Regulations: Read all about the new regulations
General calendar
Click to expand
August 2017 – Race simulation and preparations for Australia
In August the race simulation will take place. During this 3-day event the team and all external members will simulate the racing scenarios that could happen in Australia. Everything will be tested: from a wheel change to driving the right strategy. The simulation will be set up by team members from previous solar teams, as they have the required experience regarding what we might find on our way through the Australian Outback.
During this month Solar Team Twente will also be busy with the last preparations for the departure to Australia at the end of August.
September 2017 – Last preparations for the race
In Australia the tests will continue. In this period the time has come to test both the car and the team in the Australian environment. The team will be strengthened by 20 external members that will support the team during the race. Before the actual race starts, another race simulation will be conducted to optimally prepare the team for the upcoming race.
October 2017 – The race
The last days before the race takes place contain some very important events: scrutineering and qualifying. Scrutineering is the technical inspection. The car will be tested to check if she complies with the requirements of the regulation. On Saturday 7th our solar car will take part in the qualifying to determine the starting time on Sunday 8th. The actual race takes place from the 8th to the 15th.
November, December 2017 and January 2018 – Evaluation and final event
This phase will be all about finishing the project. All sub-teams and the entire team will evaluate the past year and a half. RED Shift, which fought for the victory in Australia, will be shown on several events. Near the end of this phase, the after movie of our team will be shown. After this event, the current team will stop and the solicitation procedure of the next team will be started.
Wisdom Wednesday
To explain everyone something more about the technology in our solar car, we release a Wisdom Wednesday two times a month. We will show you the different aspects of building the best solar car in the world. Our partners, who help to develop or produce the solar car, will also be mentioned. Stay in touch, because maybe your company will be mentioned in our upcoming blogs and vlogs.
28th of June – Electrical engineering: Electric motor: the car's true muscle!
12th of July – Strategy:
26th of July – Data Acquisition:
9th of August – Electrical Engineering:
23rd of August – Aerodynamics: Wind Tunnel Tests
6th of September – Strategy: Parametrisation
20th of September – Aerodynamics: Theory versus Practice
4th of October – Electrical Engineering:
Graphical material
Animation 1 – Explanation about the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge
Animation 2 – Explanation about our team structure
Animation 3 – Explanation about the different phases of the project
(Date of issue still has to be determined)
Every first friday of the month we have our monthly vlog. This is a video about all the highlights of the month before. These vlogs can be found on our Youtube channel.
General Information about Solar Team Twente
Solar Team Twente consists of twenty students of Saxion and University of Twente. Four students study at Saxion and sixteen at University of Twente. In the team everybody has their own function regarding management, communications or technical team.
Solar Team Twente has more than 100 partners and still growing. All partners are very involved in the project and contribute to the rpoject with their knowledge, abilities, expertise about technology, management and communication.
Stichting Solar Team Twente
All layers of Twente's education are represented by Stichting Solar Team Twente (foundation). The Stichting consists of representatives of ROC Twente, Saxion, University of Twente and Thales.
The project is financed through several partners (authorities, educational institutions and companies). Financing is done both in cash and in kind.
The official name 'Solar Team Twente' must initially be used in references. Of course, besides that, other references are possible. Clarity about the geographical origin of the team is preferred, because there are three solar teams in the Netherlands. Good examples in Dutch are: het Twentse solarteam, het solarteam uit Twente. English: the solar team from Twente, Twente's solar team.
The article 'the' (in Dutch: 'het') is NOT part of the name. Undesirable examples in Dutch are: Het Solar Team, Solarteam, Het Solar Team Twente. English: the Solar Team, Solarteam, the Solar Team Twente.
Desired examples in Dutch are: het (Twentse) solarteam, Solar Team Twente. English: (Twente's) solar team, Solar Team Twente.
Furthermore, we emphasize that we are a team of students from both Saxion and University of Twente. The team, however, is not from 'Saxion' or 'University of Twente'. A wrong designation therefore would be: the team from University of Twente/Saxion. When it is preferred to emphasize which educational institution the students are from, then name both institutions. Pay attention: Saxion and University of Twente are both written without article (no 'the' or 'het').


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About Markbaby
Sheffield History Pro
- Birthday 16/09/1959
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Spot on! According to Google Street View, the building on the left is still there (look at the tall chimney and the 3 chimney pots)
WIMPY BURGER in Sheffield city centre
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD RESTAURANTS AND CAFE'SThe one on Fargate changed from being just a restaurant to a fast food takeaway similar to McDonalds / Burger King (which it later became) I remember being served a Wimpey Half Pounder by Elliot Kennedy before his music producing days
It was grey and blue when it was "Sheffield Supertram". The white with coloured bands are the Stagecoach colours. Also, they didn't carry advertising when they were Grey.
Fine Fare and Fred Hartley at Manor Top
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD SHOPSWhat a great photo! I used to go to Fred Hartley's at Manor Top to buy "pop-ex" 45r.p.m. ex juke box singles.
BEATTIES toy and model shop
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD SHOPSFront and Back pages of a Beatties Christmas brochure from 1993
Famous Sheffield Residents
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD CELEBRITIESEmma Atkins - Actor (Charity dingle in Emmerdale) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0040588/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Greasy Vera's Cafe in Sheffield
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD HISTORY CHATThe original, and the best! Oh wait, That's Uncle Sam's strap line!
Greasy Vera's Cafe in Sheffield
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD HISTORY CHATI remember Vera's when it was on Mowbray Street. When it was owned and run by Vera. One night in the 80's at daft o'clock, after being in a nightclub, Me and some mates were stood waiting for a sandwich when out of the corner of my eye I spied the figure of a very tall skinhead, dressed in the full outfit of drainpipe jeans, Ben Sherman collarless shirt, oxblood Doc Martens and braces, striding towards us. I insantly thought "here comes trouble". He strode up to the serving hatch and in the politest voice ever asked "Could I have a hot dog please?" Years later, the van moved up to it's final resting place on Swinton St. The owner was now a guy called John and he told me that to move it, they just put some more air in the tyres, attached a battery, and drove it up there! I'm sure this will also spark a discission about the famous "Cheggburger" or MM as it was known, so I may be back, later in the thread
Look how much Sheffield has changed!
Markbaby replied to Sheffield History's topic in SHEFFIELD HISTORY CHATGoogle Maps view.
Anyone remember Sarsaparilla ?
Markbaby replied to peterinfrance's topic in SHEFFIELD HISTORY CHATI have a vague recollection of this shop, but I was only a toddler in the early 60's. I seem to remember stopping off with my mum and the drink coming out of a tap, not a bottle.
Diana Dors
Markbaby replied to tsavo's topic in SHEFFIELD MOVIES & FILM LOCATIONShttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tread_Softly_Stranger Tread Softly Stranger is on Talking Pictures channel (Freeview:81, Sky:343, BT:81, Freesat:306) this Thursday, 4th May, at 7.30p.m.
In the early 1980s the lives of four ordinary women, their husbands, mothers, families and community are turned around when they become Ann Summers party plan saleswomen. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5256926/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Old Photos of Gleadless
Markbaby replied to LeadFarmer's topic in SHEFFIELD PLACES - NOW GONEThanks for bringing this website to our attention. Born and bred in Herdings just after the estate was built, it's nice to see how it looked back then.
Sheffield Humour
Markbaby replied to Paul Worrall's topic in GENERAL CHATA Sheffield man walks into a pub.............................. Behind the bar is a sign which read "A pint of beer, a woman and a pie for two pounds" "Is that reyt?" he asked the barman "A pint o'beer, a woman and a pie for two pounds!?" "Yes" came the reply The man thought about it for a few moments................. "Hang on............Who's pies are they?"
Windows 10
Markbaby replied to SteveHB's topic in GENERAL CHATI'm still on XP on my laptop, and hope to be until it falls over on me. My desktop is running Win10 and seems to be stable, so I'm going to leave it alone.


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(Nefertem) Nefertum's name is most likely to be interpreted as "that which is beautifully completed," that is, perfected or actualized (the –tum ending is the same as the name of Atum). The consistent element in his iconography is the blue lotus, Nymphaea caerulea, which was highly popular in Egypt for decoration, for its fragrance, and as offerings to the Gods. It has also recently been alleged that the blue lotus may have been used as a narcotic, though this has now been disputed (Counsell 2008). Whatever may be the truth of this claim, the smelling of the lotus flower is used in Egyptian iconography to symbolize the enjoyment of sensual pleasure in its most exalted form. In PT utterance 249 Nefertum is "the lotus-bloom which is at the nose of Re," who "will issue from the horizon daily and the Gods will be cleansed at the sight of him." In this utterance the deceased king identifies himself with Nefertum: "I am this zeshzesh-flower [lotus] which sprang up from the earth [BD spell 174: "I am this lotus that shines in the earth"] … and I am at the nose of the Great Power." The lotus, as a flower that grows in water, symbolizes the emergence of the cosmos from the watery abyss and the beauty of the forms borne upon its ever-shifting surface. Regarding these forms, the Egyptians do not emphasize their aspect of impermanence, but rather their aspect of being always new, and therefore signify them through deities depicted in the form of children. PT utterance 307 speaks of the formative era "when Re was ruler of the Two Enneads and the ruler of the plebs was Nefertum." Here Re's sovereignty over the Gods (signified in the unknown number of their totality by the idealization 'Two Enneads') is paralleled in the realm of mortals by the sovereignty of Nefertum during the childhood of humanity. However, it may be the implication of impermanence, of fleetingness, that makes of Nefertum at times an object of apprehension. Thus in CT spell 335, Re is asked to save the operator from "that God whose shape is hidden … who puts bonds on the evildoers at his slaughterhouse, who kills souls," which is explained in one of the ancient commentaries as referring to "Nefertum, son of Sekhmet the Great [or 'son of Bast' in one of the glosses from the version in BD spell 17], he who uses his arm," i.e. to smite. Nefertum can be depicted as a man wearing a lotus headdress or as a child seated on a lotus, or as a lion-headed man or a lion devouring an enemy. In these leonine forms Nefertum has often a hawk on his head which itself wears the lotus headdress. Nefertum may also be mummiform, or carrying a curved sword or khepesh, or standing on a recumbent lion. He is most often considered the son of Sekhmet and Ptah, but also frequently of Bast, a connection which is probably responsible for his occasional depiction accompanied by a cat.
CT spell 295, for "becoming a scribe of the altars of Hathor," names this scribe as Ihmos, "son of Nefertum." The association with Nefertum makes sense for one who is, as it were, tallying the things consecrated to the Goddess of beauty and pleasure. CT spell 571, "To build a mansion among the waters," states that "As for these mansions among the waters of sky and earth, if my wish to come to them be not granted, sky and earth will be trodden down," and "the hebennet which is in front of the house of Nefertum will be trodden down," the hebennet being a type of offering-cake (mentioned as well in CT spell 39 and PT utterance 158). The point in such a statement is not to pose a threat, but to establish an equivalency. The permanent position which the operator seeks amidst the waters is itself the offering which is rendered to Nefertum; its impossibility would render impossible, in turn, the recognition of Nefertum's divinity, if we understand him to embody the idealized beauty and perfection of things in themselves impermanent. Assuming the form of the lotus, which is smelled and enjoyed by the Gods themselves, is to constitute this offering. Hence BD spell 81, for "assuming the form of a lotus," has the operator affirm that "I am this pure lotus that has ascended by the sunlight and is at Re's nose. I spend my time shedding the sunlight on Horus. I am the pure lotus that ascended from the field." Here the lotus of Nefertum is an intermediary between Re, the principle of cosmic order, and Horus, the principle of social order, vindicator of his father, that is, of the mortal as such. To identify with the lotus in this context is thus to identify with what is most noble and holy in mortal being, and which gratifies the Gods themselves.
Allen, T. G. 1974. The Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [BD]
Counsell, David J. 2008. "Intoxicants in Ancient Egypt? opium, nymphea, coca and tobacco." Pp. 195-215 in A. R. David, ed., Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Faulkner, R. O. 1969. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [PT]
Faulkner, R. O. 1973-8. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. 3 vols. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd. [CT].
One Response to "Nefertum"
June 6, 2013 at 6:40 pm
[…] According to Henadology: […]


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We were approached to design and build an engaging and informative website for a new eye care initiative focusing on squint diagnosis, consultations and procedures. Doctors and hospitals can be daunting so we wanted to make a site that provides all essential information for patients in a clear, sensitive and caring way making the ophthalmological process easier for children and adults to experience.
Drawing on our extensive experience of successfully adopting CX principles, we used our in-house green-screen facilities to create a series of videos showing specialists talking directly to patients and parents about the whole experience, from diagnosis to the day of the surgery. We filmed friendly, relaxed dialogue, in order to present complex messages in a simple format.
The Squint Clinic site had over 25,000 hits in its first 3 months and is regularly viewed by patients, parents, ophthalmologists, GPs and opticians across 65 countries, including Russia, Papua New Guinea, Somalia and Brazil. It has also caught the attention of the NHS resulting in opportunities to produce similar sites for other sectors.


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Rayon De Soleil
Beach apartment with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and shared pool in S'Agaró, Spain
From £220 per week
Apartment to rent in S'Agaró, Spain
Small and quiet community of 8 apartments with community pool,in S'agaró.
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Apartment overview - owner's description
Small and quiet community of 8 apartments with communal pool and landscaped gardens, located in S' Agaró, 800m from the beach of Sant Pol de S'Agaro. Possibility of being a ground floor or first floor, subject to availability. Each has 2 double bedrooms (1 double bed, 2 single beds), a living room (TV, 2 sofa beds), a kitchen, a bathroom with shower, and a terrace (first floor overlooking the sea). Community washing machines (2) without cost.
This is situated between the coastal towns of Platja d'Aro and Sant Feliu de Guixols.
this was the first residential tourism centers of the Costa Brava. The core of S'Agaró is located 2 kilometers northwest of Sant Feliu de Guixols, on the small promontory of Sant Pol, full of coves, walk two kilometers to join the beaches of Sant Pol de Sa and conca . Hiking has become in recent times in one of the main activities of the lovers of nature and open spaces.
The various stages of the International Music Festival each summer have strengthened the link with the historical S'Agaró music.
In S'Agaró Puig Pinell also highlights one of the green lungs of the municipality, on the lookout privileged and Platja Gran Bay Sant Antoni de Calonge and Palamos. The typical rotating the wind rose, from 60 meters in diameter, recognized as the largest country in the Book of Records Catalanes. Underlines the sculptural set of three candles 10 meters tall, able to turn on itself and bring the wind direction.
20% discount from 01/06 to 08/06.
This apartment does not have any reviews but the owner has 6 reviews for their other properties.
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Outside this apartment in S'Agaró, SpainThis apartment is in a quiet area near the beach. It has a shared pool, a balcony, a sea view and a shared garden. Car hire is recommended as the apartment is less than a 15 minute walk to at least a couple of shops, bars and restaurants; however parking is not available.
Prices and availability
Updated 10 December 2017
- Unavailable
- Your booking
- Available start/end date
Select your travel dates on the calendar
Changeover days and minimum stays
- 9 April 2020 - 9 April 2021: changeover day is Saturday, bookings must be for whole weeks only and the minimum stay is 7 nights.
End of stay cleaning
£52.16 per booking, paid locally
2 bedrooms, Sleeps 6:
- 1 double bed
- 2 single beds
There is also 2 single sofa beds in In the living room
1 bathroom
Swimming pool
Shared pool
TV Languages in Local
Living area seats 6, Dining area seats 6, Iron / board, Washing machine, Car hire recommended
Cooker, Crockery, Cutlery, Fridge, Freezer, Glassware, Microwave, Pots / pans
Balcony or terrace, Sea view, Shared garden
Extra information
-Shared garden -Community washing machine(without cost) -sea view ONLY on the first floors.
Private Owner From Lloret De Mar, Spain Member since Feb 2012
Past bookings: 27 bookings
Response rate: 80%
Response time: within 14 hours
Last seen: 8 days ago
Number of properties: 113


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We spent a bit of time with Curious Pastimes this bank holiday (August 2016). We came away with a wealth of recordings, videos and photographs.
We're not going to review the event as due to health issues and work commitments that wasn't really possible this year. However a later article will go into a lot more detail about what we learned and saw. This isn't the place for that discussion as this is our main photograph gallery for that event.
So sit back and enjoy the photographs, of Curious Pastimes in their 20th year.


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Today, I have the privilege of guest posting on Jon Stolpe's blog Stretched while's he's on a mission trip in Guatemala. Jon is a Christ-follower, and he writes about leadership. life, parenting, marriage & faith.
Take a few minutes to check out my post "Finding a New Normal," and leave a comment if you have an extra minute. While you're there, check out some of Jon's posts… they're well worth your time!


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Selected Non-Fictions, ŕĹčÁ·Őč 3
Penguin Books, 1999 - 560 ËąéŇ
It will come as a surprise to some readers that the greater part of Jorge Luis Borges's extraordinary writing was not in the genres of fiction or poetry, but in the various forms of non-fiction prose. His thousands of pages of essays, reviews, prologues, lectures, and notes on politics and culture--though revered in Latin America and Europe as among his finest work--have scarcely been translated into English.
Selected Non-Fictions presents a Borges almost entirely unknown to American readers. Here is the dazzling metaphysician speculating on the nature of time and reality and the inventions of heaven and hell, and the almost superhumanly erudite reader of the world's literatures, from Homer to Ray Bradbury, James Joyce to Lady Murasaki. Here, too, the political Borges, taking courageous stands against fascism, anti-Semitism, and the Peron dictatorship; Borges the moive critic, on King Kong and Citizen Kane and the Borgesian art of dubbing; and Borges the regular columnist for the Argentine equivalent of the Ladies' Home Journal, writing hilarious book reviews and capsule biographies of modern writers.
The first comprehensive selection of this work in any language, Selected Non-Fiction presents over 160 of these astonishing writings, from his youthful manifestos to his last meditations on his favorite books. More than a hundred of these pieces have never before appeared in English, and all have been rendered in brilliant new translations by Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger. This unique selection, the third and final volume in Penguin's centenary edition of the Collected Work in English, presents Borges as at once a deceptively self-effacing guide to the universe and the inventor of a universe that is an idispensable guide to Borges.
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LibraryThing Reviewş·ÇÔ¨ŇĂłě¨ŇˇĽŮéăŞé - stillatim - LibraryThing
Dear editors of 'selected' editions, no, you don't need to include that. I recognize that you're fascinated by the idea that someone opposed fascism, but by and large, that's only worth a footnote ... ÍčŇą¤ÇŇÁ¤Ô´ŕËçą©şŃşŕµçÁ
Selected nonfictionsş·ÇÔ¨ŇĂłě¨ŇˇĽŮéăŞé - Book Verdict
Borges was a compact writer, not a brief writer. His density resulted in a lot of literary awards and a lot of puzzled looking Argentinians. Combined with a propensity for brevity, however, makes for ... ÍčŇą¤ÇŇÁ¤Ô´ŕËçą©şŃşŕµçÁ
After Images
A Profession of Literary Faith
The Duration of Hell
41 ŕą×éÍËŇÍ×čąć äÁčä´éáĘ´§äÇé


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Deborah Lee Smith is a Los Angeles based actor, producer, and founder of Alette Entertainment. After obtaining her BA in Theater and English Lit at UC Berkeley, she traveled to Australia to pursue her Master's degree in Film Production.
She currently has three features in various stages of post-production including Here Awhile starring Anna Camp and the action/thriller Last Three Days (that she starred in), with numerous other projects in development. As an actor, she has most recently been seen in the viral fan film Star Wars: The Force and the Fury and on panels at various conventions including The KAPOW Women in Sci-Fi panel.
Deborah is a regular contributor to the popular entertainment website Ms. In The Biz, an avid traveler to various corners of the globe, and can often be found baking her signature delicious banana bread for friends and family.
"The Force and the Fury is focused on developing interesting characters that you want to know more about. It features excellent performances from Aris Judson and Deborah Lee Smith"
"The film is a strong addition to films that embrace representation, with Smith's powerful and nuanced portrayal of a female Sith. Satterlund created a character that turns common Star Wars rules on its head by making the villain a female, something that has only been done previously on a small scale."
Deborah writes a monthly column about entrepreneurship and the industry at Ms in the Biz.Read Her Work
Most recently, Deborah produced and acted in a film starring Anna Camp and starred in a short film currently on the festival circuit about Alzheimers.Visit IMDB
Deborah has four produced features under her belt and many projects in developmentVisit IMDB


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Title I
The Title I program is designed to provide supplemental support to students who have been identified as scoring at or below the 25th percentile on district diagnostics and are at risk of not being successful on state assessments. All students who fail the "STAAR" test and attend a Title I school, qualify for services. Additional staff positions and teaching resources are funded with the Title I federal grant money. This allows identified students to receive the additional help needed to close their achievement gap.
Poliza de compromiso de padres de Titulo I
Parent Engagement Policy English


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The other guys hide what we post in black and white
We believe in knowing what you're paying for ahead of time, where the average mover has fees and charges that they don't mention until after they are applicable! Below you will find our every day low rates.
Which Level Do I Need?
You're asking what is the difference between standard and elite. Although both are highly trained, tested, and background checked, elite have a minimum of one year experience, even more training, and know how. If you have anything heavier, hard to move, or of higher value, we suggest elite as they will have more experience, for anything else, save your money and go with standard.
Additional Fees
Item over 400 lbs: $150
Federal Holiday: Double
Step Fee: $0
Miles: Included
Fuel: Included
Night/Weekend: $0
Over/Under time fee: $0
Not sure how much time it will take?
Feel free to contact us, we would be happy to help you figure out what it might take and cost. You can always have someone come out and take a look at everything first hand so there are no surprises.