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A Study of the Cosine Distance-Based Mean Shift for Telephone Speech Diarization
- Harold Jefferson
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1 T-ASL A Study of the Cosne Dstance-Based Mean Shft for Telephone Speech Darzaton Mohammed Senoussaou, Patrck Kenny, Themos Stafylaks and Perre Dumouchel Abstract Speaker clusterng s a crucal step for speaker darzaton. The short duraton of speech segments n telephone speech dalogue and the absence of pror nformaton on the number of clusters dramatcally ncrease the dffculty of ths problem n darzng spontaneous telephone speech conversatons. We propose a smple teratve Mean Shft algorthm based on the cosne dstance to perform speaker clusterng under these condtons. Two varants of the cosne dstance Mean Shft are compared n an exhaustve practcal study. We report state of the art results as measured by the Darzaton Error Rate and the Number of Detected Speakers on the LDC CallHome telephone corpus. Index Terms Speaker darzaton, clusterng, Mean Shft, cosne dstance. S I. INTRODUCTION PEAKER darzaton conssts n splttng an audo stream nto homogeneous regons correspondng to speech of partcpatng speakers. As the problem s usually formulated, darzaton requres performng two prncpal steps, namely segmentaton and speaker clusterng. The am of segmentaton s to fnd speaker change ponts n order to form segments known as speaker turns that contan speech of a gven speaker. The am of speaker clusterng s to lnk unlabeled segments accordng to a gven metrc n order to determne the ntrnsc groupng n data. The challenge of speaker clusterng ncreases by vrtue of the absence of any pror knowledge about the consttuent number of speakers n the stream. Model selecton based on the Bayesan nformaton crteron BIC s the most popular method for speaker segmentaton [1][]. BIC can also be used to estmate the number of speakers n a recordng and other Bayesan methods have recently been proposed for ths purpose [3][4]. Herarchcal Agglomeratve Clusterng HAC s by far the most wdespread approach to the speaker clusterng problem. Other methods, ncludng hybrd approaches contnue to be developed [4] [5]. Manuscrpt receved June 1, 13, revsed August 31, 13 and accepted September 4, 13. Ths work was supported by the Natural Scence and Engneerng Research Councl of Canada. Copyrght c 13 IEEE. Personal use of ths materal s permtted. However, permsson to use ths materal for any other purposes must be obtaned from the IEEE by sendng a request to M. Senoussaou s wth Centre de recherche nformatque de Montréal CRIM, Montréal, Qc, H3A 1B9, Canada and wth École de technologe supéreure ÉTS, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mal: P. Kenny and T. Stafylaks are wth Centre de recherche nformatque de Montréal CRIM, Montréal, QC, H3A 1B9, Canada e-mal: P. Dumouchel s wth École de technologe supéreure ÉTS, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mal: In ths work, we focus on the speaker clusterng task rather than speaker segmentaton. We propose a clusterng method whch s capable of estmatng the number of speakers partcpatng n a telephone conversaton, a challengng problem consderng that speaker turns are generally of very short duraton [4]. The method n queston s the so-called Mean Shft MS algorthm. Ths approach s borrowed from the feld of computer vson where t s wdely used to detect the number of colors and for mage segmentaton purposes. The MS algorthm s a nonparametrc teratve mode-seekng algorthm ntroduced by Fukunaga [6]. Despte ts frst appearance n 1975, MS remaned n oblvon except for works such as [7] that amed to generalze the orgnal verson. The MS algorthm reappeared n 0 wth the work of Comancu [8] n mage processng. Recently, Stafylaks et al. [9][10] has shown how to generalze the basc Eucldean space MS algorthm to non-eucldean manfolds so that objects other than ponts n Eucldean space can be clustered. Ths generalzed method was appled to the problem of speaker clusterng n a context where speaker turns were characterzed by multvarate Gaussan dstrbutons. Our choce of the MS algorthm s manly motvated by ts nonparametrc nature. Ths characterstc offers the major advantage of not havng to make assumptons about the shape of data dstrbuton, n contrast to conventonal probablstc darzaton methods. Recently [11], we presented a new extenson of the Eucldean Mean Shft that works wth a cosne dstance metrc. Ths new algorthm was shown to be very effectve for speaker clusterng n large populatons where each speaker was represented by a whole sde of a telephone conversaton. Ths work was motvated by the success of cosne smlarty matchng n the speaker verfcaton feld [1][13][14][15]. Cosne dstance has also been successfully tested n speaker darzaton of the CallHome telephone corpus [16][17]. In ths work, frstly, we propose to test the cosne-based MS algorthm on the darzaton of mult-speaker -wre telephone recordngs. We do not assume that the number of partcpatng speakers s gven. Secondly, we compare two clusterng mechansms that explot the cosne-based MS algorthm wth respect to darzaton performance as measured by the number of speakers detected and the standard darzaton error metrc and wth respect to executon tmes. Although darzaton on telephone conversatons s an mportant and dffcult task, there are not, to our knowledge, any publshed studes on the use of the MS algorthm to solve ths problem. Unlke broadcast news speech, the shortness of
2 T-ASL the speaker turn duraton n telephone speech typcally one second makes the task of properly representng these segments n a feature space more dffcult. In order to deal wth ths problem, we represent each speaker turn by an - vector a representaton of speech segments by vectors of fxed dmenson, ndependent of segment duratons [1]. I-vector features have been used successfully not only n speaker recognton [1][13][14][15] and speaker darzaton and clusterng [16][17][1][11] but also n language recognton [][3]. Although probablstc classfers such as Probablstc Lnear Dscrmnant Analyss have become predomnant n applyng -vector methods to speaker recognton, smple cosne dstance based classfers reman compettve [1][13] and we wll use ths approach n developng the speaker darzaton algorthms presented here. Note that n [4], the authors show that cosne dstance provdes a better metrc than Eucldean dstance n GMMsupervector space. In [16], the authors ntroduced a darzaton system where -vectors were used to represent speaker turns and cosne dstance based k-means clusterng was used to assocate speaker turns wth ndvdual speakers. Tested on two-speaker conversatons, ths approach outperformed a BIC-based herarchcal agglomeratve clusterng system by a wde margn. But, n order for k-means clusterng to work, the number of speakers n a gven conversaton needs to be known n advance, so t s not straghtforward to extend ths approach to the general darzaton problem where the number of speakers partcpatng n the conversaton needs to be determned a smple heurstc s presented n [17]. The man contrbuton of ths paper s to show how usng the Mean Shft algorthm n place of k-means enables ths problem to be dealt wth very effectvely. As our test bed we use the CallHome telephone speech corpus development/test provded by NIST n the year 00 speaker recognton evaluaton SRE. Ths conssts of spontaneous telephone conversatons nvolvng varyng numbers of speakers. The CallHome dataset has been the subject of several studes [17][18][19][][1]. The rest of ths paper s organzed as follows. In Secton II we frst provde some background materal on the -vector feature space that wll be used n ths work. In Secton III, we gve some prelmnares on the orgnal verson of the Mean Shft algorthm and explan how we nclude the cosne dstance by ntroducng a smple modfcaton. Two ways of explotng the MS algorthm for clusterng purposes wll also be gven. In Secton IV, we present dfferent methods of normalzng -vectors for darzaton such normalzatons turn out to be very mportant for our approach. Thereafter, we perform a detaled expermental study and analyss n Sectons V and VI before concludng ths work n Secton VII. II. I-VECTORS FOR SPEAKER DIARIZATION The supervector representaton has been appled wth great success to the feld of speaker recognton, especally when t was exploted n the well-known generatve model named Jont Factor Analyss JFA [5]. In hgh-dmensonal Input: audo sgnal Output: segmentaton Feature extracton/intal segmentaton -vector clusterng Mean Shft Darzaton system -vector extracton Fg. 1. Skeleton of the Mean shft -vector darzaton system: Segmentaton of the speech sgnal s followed by extractng -vectors for each segment and then the -vectors are clustered usng Mean Shft n our case. supervector space, JFA attempts to jontly model speaker and channel varabltes usng a large amount of background data. When a relatvely small amount of speaker data s avalable.e. durng enrolment and test stages, JFA enables effectve speaker modelng by suppressng channel varablty from the speech sgnal. A major advance n the area of speaker recognton was the ntroducton of the low dmensonal feature vectors known as -vectors [1]. We can defne an -vector as the mappng usng a Factor Analyss or a Probablstc Prncpal Component Analyss of a hgh-dmensonal supervector to a low-dmensonal space called total varablty space here the word total s used to refer to both speaker and channel varabltes. Unlke JFA that proposes to dstngush between speaker and channel effects n the supervector space, -vector methods seek to model these effects n a low dmensonal space where many standard pattern recognton methods can be brought to bear on the problem. Mathematcally, the mappng of a supervector X to an - vector x s expressed by the followng formula: X = X UBM + Tx. 1 where X UBM s the supervector of the Unversal Background Model UBM and the rectangular matrx T s the so-called Total Varablty matrx. More mathematcal detals of - vectors and ther estmaton can be found n [1][5][6]. I-vectors have successfully been deployed n many felds other than speaker recognton [16][17][1][][3]. Methods successful n one feld can often be translated to other felds by dentfyng the sources of useful and nusance varablty. Thus n speaker recognton, speaker varablty s useful but t counts as nusance varablty n language recognton. In the darzaton problem, the speaker turn represented by an -vector n our case s the fundamental representaton unt or what we usually call a sample n Pattern Recognton termnology. Moreover, an aggregaton of homogenous - vectors wthn one conversaton represents a cluster speaker n our case or what s commonly known as a class. Thus, the darzaton problem becomes one of clusterng -vectors [11][16][17][1].
3 T-ASL III. THE MEAN SHIFT ALGORITHM The Mean Shft algorthm can be vewed as a clusterng algorthm or as a way of fndng the modes n a nonparametrc dstrbuton. In ths secton we wll present the ntutve dea behnd the Mean Shft mode-seekng process as well as the mathematcal dervatons of ths algorthm. Addtonally, we present two varants of ths algorthm whch can be appled for clusterng purposes. Fnally, the extenson of the tradtonal MS to the cosne-based MS s presented. A. The ntutve dea behnd Mean Shft The ntutve dea of Mean Shft s qute natural and smple. Startng from a gven vector x n a set S = { x 1, x,..., x n } of unlabeled data whch are -vectors n our case we can reach a statonary pont called a densty mode through the teratve process depcted n Algorthm 1. Note that the Algorthm 1 refers to the orgnal Mean Shft process. The mathematcal convergence proof of the sequence of successve postons {y } =1,... s found n [6][8]. Algorthm 1 Mean Shft Intuton dea =1, y = x Center a wndow around y // Intalzaton repeat µ h y // estmate the sample mean of data fallng wthn the wndow.e. neghborhood of y n terms of Eucldean dstance y +1 = µ h y Move the wndow from x to y +1 = +1 untl Stablzaton // a mode has been found B. Mathematcal development Mean Shft s a member of the Kernel Densty Estmaton KDE famly of algorthms also known as Parzen wndowng. Estmatng the probablty densty functon of a dstrbuton usng a lmted sample of data s a fundamental problem n pattern recognton. The standard form of the estmated kernel densty functon ˆf x at a randomly selected pont x s gven by the followng formula 1 : ˆf x = 1 nh d n " k x! x # h =1 where kx s a kernel functon and h s ts radal wdth, referred to as the kernel bandwdth. Ignorng the selecton of kernel type, h s the only tunable parameter n the Mean shft algorthm; ts role s to smooth the estmated densty functon. In order to ensure certan propertes such as asymptotc unbasedness and consstency, the kernel and bandwdth h should satsfy some condtons that are dscussed n detal n [6]. In general, the purpose of KDE s to estmate the densty 1 Note that for smplcty we gnore some constants n the mathematcal dervatons. functon but the Mean shft procedure s only concerned wth locatng the modes of the densty functon f x and not the values of the densty functon at these ponts. To fnd the modes, the Mean shft algorthm dervaton requres calculatng the gradent of the densty functon f x. The estmate of the gradent of the densty functon f x s gven by the gradent of the estmate of the densty functon ˆf x as follows [6][8][7][8][9]: ˆ!f x "!ˆf x = 1 n x # x *!k nh d h =1 = n x # x *x # x nh d+ k+ h. =1 A smple type of kernel s the Epanechnkov kernel gven by the followng formula: # kx = 1! x x " x >1 Let gx be the unform kernel: " gx = # 1 x! x >1 Note that t satsfes: k!x = "c gx 6 where c s a constant and the prme s the dervaton operator. Then we can wrte!ˆf x as:!ˆf x = n # x nh d+ " xg x " x h =1 * n #, = * n # g x " x - x g, =1, nh d+ h /, +, =1./ n #, g +, =1 The expresson: n " x g =1 # m h x = n " g =1 # x! x h x! x h! x x " x h x " x h - / / " x /. /. / s what we refer to as the Mean Shft vector m h x. Note that the Mean Shft vector m h x s just the dfference of the current poston nstance vector x from the next poston presented by the weghed sample mean vector of all data. Indeed, the weghts n the mean formula are gven by the bnary outputs.e. 0 or 1 of the flat kernel gx
4 T-ASL For smplcty, let us denote the unform kernel wth bandwdth h by gx, x, h so that: = 1 x! x g x, x, h # " h. 9 0 x! x > h In other words, gx, x, h selects a subset S h x of n x samples by analogy wth Parzen wndows we refer to ths subset as a wndow n whch the Eucldean parwse dstances wth x are less or equal to the threshold bandwdth h: S h { }. 10 x! x : x " x # h Therefore, we can rewrte the Mean Shft vector as: m h x = µ h x! x 11 where µ h x s the sample mean of the n x samples of S h x: µ h x = 1 " x. 1 n x x!s h x The teratve processng of calculatng the sample mean followed by data shftng whch produces the sequence {y } =1,... referred to n Algorthm1 converges to a mode of the data dstrbuton. C. Mean Shft for speaker clusterng The Mean Shft algorthm can be exploted to deal wth the problem of speaker clusterng n the case where the number of clusters speakers n our case s unknown, as well as other problems such as the segmentaton steps nvolved n mage processng and object trackng [8]. In the followng subsectons, we present two clusterng mechansms based on the MS algorthm, namely, the Full and the Selectve clusterng strateges. Full strategy One may apply the teratve Mean Shft procedure at each data nstance. In general, some of the MS processes wll converge to the same densty mode. The number of densty modes after prunng represents the number of detected clusters and nstances that converge to the same mode are deemed to belong to the same cluster we call these ponts the basn of attracton of the mode. In ths work we refer to ths approach as Full strategy. Selectve strategy Unlke the Full Mean Shft clusterng strategy, we can adapt ths strategy to run the MS process on a subset of data only. The dea s to keep track of the number of vsts to each data pont that occurs durng the evoluton of a Mean Shft process. After the convergence of the frst Mean Shft process the samples that have been vsted are assgned to the frst cluster. We then run a second process startng from one of the unvsted samples and create a second cluster. We contnue to run MS processes one after another untl we have no unvsted data samples. Some of the samples may be allocated to more than one cluster by ths procedure then majorty votng s needed to reconcle these conflcts. Note that the computatonal complexty depends on the number of samples n the Full strategy and t depends only on the number of clusters n the case of the Selectve strategy. A MATLAB mplementaton of the Selectve strategy can be found onlne. In ths work the expermental results of the Full and Selectve clusterng strateges are compared n Secton VI. D. Mean Shft- based on cosne dstance The success of the cosne dstance n speaker recognton s well known [1][13][14][15]. A ratonale for usng cosne dstance nstead of Eucldean dstance can be suppled by postulatng a normal dstrbuton for the speaker populaton as n PLDA [30]. Suppose we are gven a par of -vectors and we wsh to test the hypothess that they belong to the same speaker cluster aganst the hypothess that they belong to dfferent clusters. Because most of the populaton mass s concentrated n the neghborhood of the orgn, speakers n ths regon are n danger of beng confused wth each other. In the case of a par of -vectors whch are close to the orgn, the same speaker hypothess wll only be accepted f the -vectors are relatvely close together. On the other hand, f the -vectors are far from the orgn, they can be relatvely far apart from each other wthout nvaldatng the same speaker hypothess. Hence, n order to ncorporate ths pror knowledge regardng the dstrbuton of the speaker means nto the MS algorthm, we may ether use a the Eucldean dstance and a varable bandwdth that ncreases wth the dstance from the orgn or b fxed bandwdth and the cosne smlarty. The latter approach s evdently preferable. The cosne dstance between two vectors x and y s gven by: # Dx, y =1! x " y x y. 13 The orgnal Mean Shft algorthm based on a flat kernel reles on the Eucldean dstance to fnd ponts fallng wthn the wndow as shown n 10. In [11] we proposed the use of the cosne metrc nstead of the Eucldean one to buld a new verson of the Mean shft algorthm. Only one modfcaton needs be ntroduced n 10; we set S h x! { x : Dx, x " h} 14 where Dx, x s the cosne dstance between x and x gven by the formula 13. Ths corresponds to redefnng the unform kernel as:
5 T-ASL = 1 Dx, x! h #. 15 g x, x, h " 0 Dx, x > h E. Conversaton-dependent bandwdth It s known from the lterature [31] that one of the practcal lmtatons of Mean Shft algorthm s the need to fx the bandwdth h. Usng a fxed bandwdth s not generally approprate, as the local structure of samples can change the data that needs to be clustered. We have found that varyng the bandwdth from one conversaton to another turns out to be useful n darzaton based on Mean Shft algorthm. In order to deal wth the dsparty caused by the varable duraton of conversatons, we adopt a verson of the varable bandwdth scheme proposed n [10]. Ths s desgned to smooth the densty estmator n the case of short conversatons where the number of segments to be clustered s small. The varable bandwdth s controlled by two parameters! and the fxed bandwdth h. For a conversaton c, the conversaton-dependent bandwdth!h c s gven by "!h c =1! nc! 1! h 16 # n c! + 1! h where n c s the number of segments n the conversaton. Note that! h c! h wth equalty f nc s very large. F. Cluster prunng An artfact of the Mean Shft algorthm s that there s nothng to prevent t from producng clusters wth very small numbers of segments. To counter ths tendency, we smply prune clusters contanng a small number of samples less than or equal to a constant p by mergng them wth ther nearest neghbors. IV. I-VECTOR NORMALIZAION FOR DIARIZATION By desgn, -vectors are ntended to represent a wde range of speech varabltes. Hence, raw -vectors need to be normalzed n ways whch vary from one applcaton to another. Based on the above defntons of class and sample n relaton to our problem see Secton II, we wll present n the followng sectons some methods to normalze -vectors whch are sutable for speaker darzaton. A. Prncpal components analyss PCA In [16] t was shown that projectng -vectors onto the conversaton-dependent PCA axes wth hgh varance helps to compensate for ntra-sesson varablty. A further weghtng wth the square root of the correspondng egenvalues was also appled to these axes n order to emphasze ther mportance. The authors of [16] recommend choosng the PCA dmensonalty so as to retan 50 of the data varance. We wll denote ths quantty by r. Ideally each retaned PCA axs represents the varablty due to a sngle speaker n the conversaton. Note that that ths type of PCA s local n the sense that analyss s done on a fle-by-fle bass. Thus has the advantage that no background data s requred to mplement t. B. Wthn Class Covarance Normalzaton WCCN Normalzng data varances usng a Wthn Class Covarance matrx has become common practce n the Speaker Recognton feld [1][13][15]. The dea behnd ths normalzaton s to penalze axes wth hgh ntra-class varance by rotatng data usng a decomposton of the nverse of the Wthn Class Covarance matrx. C. Between Class Covarance Normalzaton BCCN By analogy wth the WCCN approach, we propose a new normalzaton method based on the maxmzaton of the drectons of between class varance by normalzng the - vectors wth the decomposton of the between class covarance matrx B. The between class covarance matrx s gven by the followng formula: B = 1 I " n x! x x! x t 17 n =1 where the sum ranges over I conversaton sdes n a background tranng set, x = 1! x j s the sample mean of n k j=1 speaker turns wthn the conversaton sde and x s the sample mean of all -vectors. A. CallHome data V. IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS We use the CallHome dataset dstrbuted by NIST durng the year 00 speaker recognton evaluaton [18]. CallHome s a mult-lngual 6 languages dataset of mult-speaker telephone recordngs of 1 to 10 mnutes duraton. Fg. depcts the development part of the dataset whch contans 38 conversatons, broken down by the number of speakers to 4 #!"!!" #!"!!" #!"!!" #!"!"!" " #" #"!" #"!"!" " " Fg. CallHome development data set broken down by categores representng the number of partcpatng speakers n conversatons. Fg. 3 CallHome test set broken down by categores representng the number of partcpatng speakers n conversatons. n "!" " " "*+,*-"."*+,*-" /"*+,*-" "*+,-+." "*+,-+." "*+,-+." #"*+,-+." "*+,-+." /"*+,-+."
6 T-ASL speakers. The CallHome test set contans 500 conversatons, broken down by the number of speakers n Fg. 3. Note that the number of speakers ranges from to 4 n the development set and from to 7 n the test set, so that there s a danger of over-tunng on the development set. For our purposes the development set serves to decde whch types of -vector normalzaton to use, to fx the bandwdth parameter h n 15, 16 and to determne a strategy for prunng sparsely populated clusters. Because there s essentally only one scalar parameter to be tuned, our approach s not at rsk for overtunng on the development set. B. Feature extracton 1 Speech parameterzaton Every 10ms, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coeffcents MFCC are extracted from a 5 ms hammng wndow 19 MFC Coeffcents + energy. As s tradtonal n darzaton, no feature normalzaton s appled. Unversal background model We use a gender-ndependent UBM contanng 51 Gaussans. Ths UBM s traned wth the LDC releases of Swtchboard II, Phases and 3; Swtchboard Cellular, Parts 1 and ; and NIST SRE telephone speech only. 3 I-vector extractor We use a gender-ndependent -vector extractor of dmenson 100, traned on the same data as UBM together wth data from the Fsher corpus. C. I-vector normalzaton Among the normalzaton methods presented n Secton IV, only the wthn and the between class covarance matrces need background data to be estmated. In order to estmate them we used telephone speech whole conversaton sdes from the 04 and 05 NIST speaker recognton evaluatons. D. Intal segmentaton The focus n ths work s speaker clusterng rather than segmentaton. Followng the authors of [4] [16], we unformly segmented speech ntervals found by a voce actvty detector nto segments of about one second of duraton. Ths naïve approach to speaker turn segmentaton s tradtonal n darzng telephone speech where speaker turns tend to be very short and Vterb re-segmentaton s generally appled n subsequent processng. Note that the results presented n [16] show that usng reference slence detector offers no sgnfcant mprovement n comparson to ther own speech detector. E. Evaluaton protocol In order to evaluate the performances of dfferent systems we use the NIST Darzaton Error Rate DER as the prncpal measure system performance. Usng the NIST scorng scrpt md-eval-v1.pl 3 we evaluate the DER of the concatenated.rttm fles produced for all conversatons n the development and test sets. As s tradtonal n speaker darzaton of telephone speech, we gnore overlappng speech segments and 3 we tolerate errors less than 50 ms n locatng segment boundares. In addton to DER, the Number of Detected Speakers NDS and ts average calculated over all fles ANDS are also useful performance evaluaton metrcs n the context of clusterng wth unknown numbers of speakers. We adopt a graphcal llustraton of DER vs. NDS to represent systems behavors Fgs. 4 and 5. These graphs are obtaned by sweepng out the bandwdth parameter h. On these graphs, the actual number of speakers s gven by the vertcal sold lne and the estmated number s gven by the dashed lne. VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS In ths secton we provde a detaled study of the effect of the -vector normalzaton methods descrbed n Secton VI-C. A. Parameter tunng on the development set Fg. 4 Results on the development set obtaned wth PCA -vector normalzaton: Full Mean Shft performances DER/Number of estmated speakers. The mnmum of DER, the correspondng bandwdth h and the number of detected speakers #Spk are also gven for each PCA reducton factor r = 80, 60, 50 and 30. In order to establsh a benchmark we frst ran the two r: 80 DER: 1.60 #Spk: 370 h: r: 50 DER: #Spk: 177 h: r: 80 DER: #Spk: 5 h: r: 50 DER: 1.8 #Spk: 33 h: Fg. 5 Results on the development set obtaned wth PCA -vector normalzaton: Selectve Mean Shft performances DER/Number of estmated speakers. The mnmum of DER, the correspondng bandwdth h and the number of detected speakers #Spk are also gven for each PCA reducton factor r = 80, 60, 50 and r: 60 DER: 1.16 #Spk: 75 h: r: 30 DER: #Spk: 45 h: r: 60 DER: 1.70 #Spk: 38 h: 0.3 r: 30 DER: 1.18 #Spk: 165 h:
7 T-ASL versons of Mean Shft wth PCA normalzaton of -vectors. Each graph n Fgs. 4 and 5 corresponds to a percentage of retaned egenvalues r = 80, 60, 50 and 30 respectvely. In Fgs. 4 and 5 we observe that although the results for the two strateges wth r = 30 are slghtly better than those wth r = 50, the graphs are rregular n the former case so that takng r = 50 as n [16] seems to be the better course. Note that the optmal DER for all confguratons s reached wth an overestmaton of the number of speakers. Fortunately overestmaton s preferable to underestmaton, as t can be remeded by prunng sparsely populated clusters. Impact of length normalzaton We began by testng the effect of length normalzaton of raw -vectors before applyng PCA. Surprsngly, ths smple operaton mproves the DER by absolute row 3 - Len.n - n Table 1. Wth length normalzaton and r = 50, DER decreases from 11.9 see Fg. 4 to 10 Full strategy and from 1. see Fg. 5 to 10. Selectve strategy. Furthermore, the number of detected speakers NDS n the case of Selectve strategy decreases from 33 to 81, thus approachng the actual value of 103. However, n the case of Full strategy the detected NDS ncreases form 177 to 316. TABLE 1 RESULTS ON THE DEVELOPEMNT TEST SET ILLUSTRATING THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT NORMALIZATION METHODS DER IS THE DIARIZATION ERROR RATE, NDS THE NUMBER OF DETECTED SPEAKERS, h THE BANDWIDTH AND p THE PRUNINING PARARMETER THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF SPEAKERS IS 103. Full MS Selectve MS Norm DER DER method NDS h p NDS h p Len. n WCC BCC Var. h Prun Impact of wthn class covarance normalzaton In ths experment we frst normalze -vectors usng the Cholesky decomposton of the nverse of the WCC matrx, and follow ths wth length normalzaton and PCA projecton. As we see n row 4 of Table 1 WCC normalzaton causes performance degradaton. The DER ncreases from 10 to 11.7 n the Full case and from 10. to 11.7 n the Selectve case compared to both prevous normalzaton methods, namely PCA and length normalzaton. These results were not n lne wth our expectatons derved from our experence n speaker recognton; they may be due to an nteracton between the PCA and WCC normalzatons. Impact of between class covarance normalzaton We proceeded n a smlar way to WCC normalzaton. We project data usng the Cholesky decomposton of the BCC matrx followed by length normalzaton and PCA projecton. In row 5 of Table 1 we notce a remarkable twofold mprovement compared wth row. On the one hand, we obtan a DER decrease from 10 to 7.6 for the Full strategy case and from 10. to 7.7 for the Selectve case. On the other hand, we detect a number of speakers much nearer to the actual value of 103, partcularly n the Selectve case 189 speakers. Conversaton-dependent bandwdth Mean Shft We appled the varable bandwdth scheme gven n formula 16 to the prevous BCC normalzaton system. In row 6 of Table 1, we observe a slght mprovement n DER for both strateges. Cluster prunng Although we succeed n reducng the DER from ~1 to ~7 for both strateges, the estmated number of speakers correspondng to the mnmum of DER s stll hgher than the actual value. As dscussed n Secton III-F we prune clusters contanng a small number of samples less than or equal to a constant p n order to counter ths tendency. The correspondng results appear n the last row of Table 1. We observe that for the Full strategy, mergng clusters havng one nstance p = 1 reduces the estmated number of speakers from 300 to 109 whle the DER slghtly ncreases from 7.5 to 8.3. For the Selectve strategy, wth p = 3 we get a nce mprovement regardng Number of Detected Speakers 111 speakers nstead of 3 whle the DER s essentally unaffected, decreasng from 7.6 to 7.5. B. Results on the test set As we explaned when dscussng the evaluaton protocol Secton V-E, we now present the results obtaned on the test set by usng parameters bandwdth and the prunng factor p tuned on the development set. Table presents the most mportant results. The term Fx. h n row 3 of Table refers to the best system usng fxed bandwdth presented n row 5 of Table 1 BCC. In ths system we used respectvely BCC, length normalzaton followed by length normalzaton and PCA projecton wth r = 50 as optmzed on the development set. In row 4 of table Var. h, the system s exactly the same as the prevous one Fx. h system but wth a varable bandwdth. Fnally, the last row of Table Prun. shows the mpact of clusters prunng on the varable bandwdth system Var. h. TABLE RESULTS ON TEST DATA SET USING OPTIMAL PARAMETERS ESTIMATED ON THE DEVELOPMENT SET. THE TOTAL ACTUAL NUMBER OF SPEAKERS IS 183. Full MS Selectve MS Norm DER DER method NDS h p NDS h p Fx. h Var. h Prun From the results n Table we observe the usefulness of the varable bandwdth n reducng the DER from 14.3 to 1.7 n the Full MS case and from 13.9 to 1.6 n the Selectve case. Observe also that the number of detected speakers NDS s reduced from 3456 to 550 n the Full MS strategy and from 3089 to 310 n the Selectve case. Fnally, n the test set, cluster prunng leads to a degradaton of the
8 T-ASL Raw -vectors BCC normalzaton Length normalzaton whch descrbes the evaluaton protocol, these works present results broken down by the number of partcpatng speakers. Darzaton System DER from 1.6 to 14.3 usng the Selectve strategy, n contrast to what s observed on the development set where the DER showed a slght mprovement. However, cluster prunng on the test set for the Full case s surprsngly helpful to the pont that the DER 1.4 concdes perfectly wth the one optmzed on the development set see the bandwdth h n row 7 of Table 1. Gven that the above results are obtaned usng the parameters tuned on an ndependent dataset, ths confrms the generalzaton capablty of the cosne-based Mean Shft for both clusterng strateges. Among the publcatons reportng results on the CallHome dataset [17][18][19][][1], only Vaquero s thess presents results based on the total DER calculated over all fles [1]. He uses speaker factors rather than -vectors to represent speech segments and he used a multstage system based prncpally on Herarchcal Agglomeratve Clusterng HAC, k-means and Vterb segmentaton. He also estmated tunable parameters on an ndependent development set consstng solely of two-speaker recordngs. However, he was constraned to provde the actual number of speakers as stoppng crteron for HAC n order to acheve a total DER of 13.7 on the test CallHome set. Wthout ths constrant, the performance was Compared to hs results, we were able to acheve a 37 relatve mprovement n the total DER see Table. In summary, we presented some results on development and test sets from whch we can draw the followng conclusons: Length normalzaton of the raw -vectors before PCA projecton helps n reducng DER. PCA wth r = 50 offers the best confguraton. WCC normalzaton degrades performance. BCC normalzaton, followed by length normalzaton and PCA, helps to decrease both DER and NDS. Varable bandwdth combned wth cluster prunng p = 1 appled after length normalzaton, PCA projecton and BCC normalzaton help n reducng DER and NDS n the Full case. Both strateges, namely Full and Selectve, perform equvalently well on development and test sets. In Fg. 6 we depct the best -vectors normalzaton protocol that we adopt n ths study. C. Results broken-down by the number speakers PCA projecton Fg. 6 The best protocol of -vector normalzaton for the MS darzaton systems. In order to compare our results wth those of [17][18][19][] we need to adopt the same conventon for presentng darzaton results. As mentoned n Secton V-E TABLE 3 FULL MEAN SHIFT RESULTS ON TEST-SET DEPICTED AS A FUNCTION OF THE NUMBER OF PATRICIPATING SPEAKERS. Speakers h / p number Dev. Param. Test param. DER Fx. h ANDS / 0 DER Var. h ANDS / 0 DER Fx. h ANDS / 0 DER Var. h ANDS / 0 Indeed, the offcal development set conssted of conversatons wth just to 4 speakers so t s hard to avod tunng on the test set f one wshes to optmze performance on conversatons wth large numbers of speakers. In Tables 3 and 4 we present results broken down by the number of speakers on the test set for the Full and Selectve Mean shft algorthms, wth two tunngs, one on the development rows --5 and the other on the test set rows Recall that the tunable parameters are the nature of the bandwdth.e. fxed or varable, ts value.e. h and the prunng factor p. It s apparent from the tables that all of the Mean Shft mplementatons generalze well from the development set to the test set. From Table 3 we observe frstly that the Full MS mplementaton does not need any fnal cluster prunng.e. p = 0 when we optmze takng account of the number of partcpatng speakers see last column of Table 3. Second, estmatng the number of speakers works better wth a fxed bandwdth see rows 3 and 7 of Table 3 and the DERs are almost comparable to those obtaned wth a conversatondependent bandwdth.e. Var. h. Generally speakng, varable bandwdth helps n reducng DER for recordngs havng small number of speakers, 3, 4 speakers. Fnally, the most mportant observaton from Table 3 s the hgh generalzaton capablty of the Full MS especally n the fxed bandwdth case. Comparng rows and 3 wth rows 6 and 7 of Table 3 we see that the optmal parameters for the test set are the same as those for the development set. Dev. Param. Test param. TABLE 4 SELECTIVE MEAN SHIFT RESULTS ON TEST DATA SET DEPICTED AS A FUNCTION OF THE NUMBER OF PATRICIPATING SPEAKERS. Speakers h / p number DER Fx. ANDS / 3 DER Var. ANDS / 3 DER Fx. ANDS / 3 DER Var. ANDS / 3
9 T-ASL !" #"!" #"!" #" 1/G" G/H" #/#" /I"!/" G/#" G/8" #/8" H/I" #/" /#" G/8" 1" G/H" I/#" I/1" #/1" /" /8" /#" /G" G/" H/I" H/1" /1" /1" /G" /G" 8/I" 8/#" From the results depcted n Table 4 we observe that the fnal cluster prunng s necessary n the Selectve MS case. Compared to Full MS results n Table 3, we observe that DERs are smlar but the Selectve strategy outperforms the Full one regardng the average number of detected speakers ANDS. The combnaton of the varable bandwdth wth the fnal cluster prunng p = 3 enables us to get the best results, both for DER and Average Number of Detected Speakers see rows 4 and 5 and rows 8 and 9 n table 4. The ANDS values are n fact very close to the actual numbers row 6 vs. row 1 wth a slght overestmaton, except n the 6-speaker fles case where there s a slght underestmaton 5.8. Fnally, we observe that the Full strategy generalzes better than the Selectve one n the sense that we were able to reach the best performance on the test usng development tunable parameters. Vterb re-segmentaton Refnng segment boundares between speaker turns usng Vterb re-segmentaton s a standard procedure for mprovng darzaton system performance. Results reported n Table 5 show ts effectveness when combned wth the Mean Shft algorthms. Note that the results wthout Vterb resegmentaton gray entres n table 5 are the results presented n the 6 th and 8 th rows n tables 3 and 4. TABLE 5 IMPACT OF VITERBI RE-SEGMENTATION ON THE TEST-SET RESULTS USING PARAMETRES ESTIMATED ON TEST DATA DEPICTED AS A FUNCTION OF THE Full MS Selectve MS!" NUMBER OF PATRICIPATING SPEAKERS AND MEASURED WITH DER. Fx. h - Vterb Vterb Var. h - Vterb Vterb Fx. h Var. h *++,"-."/"01" 3+.4,"-."/"0!" 567*"-."/"08" - Vterb Vterb Vterb Vterb n [19] estmatng the number of speakers was done separately from speaker clusterng. We compare graphcally n Fg. 7 the results as measured by DER of our best confguratons wth Vterb resegmentaton of the Full and Selectve strateges.e. Full and Selectve systems presented n the 4 th and 8 th rows of Table 5 respectvely wth those n [19][][17]. It s evdent that our results as measured by DER are n lne wth the state-of-theart. To be clear, snce our results were taken from Tables 3 and 4, there was some tunng on the test set as n Dalmasso et al. [19], Castaldo et al. [], and Shum et al. [17] Furthermore, the comparson based on the average number of detected speakers s not possble except n the case of Dalmasso et al. [19]. In Table 6 we compare our best results from Table 4 usng ths crteron wth those of [19]. The results are smlar although the Mean Shft algorthm tends to overestmate the speaker number. TABLE 6 COMPARISON WITH DALMASSO RESULTS BASED ON THE AVRAGE OF THE NUMBER OF DETECTED SPEAKERS ANDS. Actual Number of speakers Dalmasso et al. [19] Selectve MS D. Tme complexty 5--DEF-":-;"56<="""""""""""""""""""""""""" Fg. 7 Comparson of Full and Selectve Mean Shft clusterng algorthms wth state-of-the-art results based on DER for each category of CallHome test set recordngs havng same number of speakers. Tme complexty s not a major concern n ths study but Fg. 8 llustrates the dfference between the Full and the Selectve strateges n ths regard. The average tme for the Full case s seconds per fle vs seconds for the Selectve case Comparson wth exstng state-of-the-art results We conclude ths secton wth a comparson between our results and those obtaned by other authors on the Call Home data although there are several factors whch make back-toback comparsons dffcult. Contrary to [1] and our work, the authors of [17][19][] dd not use a development set ndependent of the test set for parameter tunng. Furthermore n [19] and [], the authors assumed pror hypotheses about the maxmum number of speakers wthn a slce of speech, and Tme s Full Selectve Recordngs of CallHome development set Fg. 8 Tme complextes of the Full and Selectve strateges calculated n seconds on each conversaton of the development set. The horzontal lnes ndcate the processng tmes averaged over all fles.
10 T-ASL VII. CONCLUSION Ths paper provdes a detaled study of the applcaton of the non-parametrc Mean Shft algorthm to the problem of speaker clusterng n darzng telephone speech conversatons usng two varants of the basc clusterng algorthm the Full and Selectve versons. We have suppled n the Appendx a convergence proof whch justfes our extenson of the Mean Shft algorthm from the Eucldean dstance metrc to the cosne dstance metrc. We have shown how, together wth an -vector representaton of speaker turns, ths smple approach to the speaker clusterng problem can handle several dffcult problems --- short speaker turns, varyng numbers of speakers and varyng conversaton duratons. Wth a sngle pass clusterng strategy that s, wthout Vterb re-segmentaton we were able to acheve a 37 relatve mprovement as measured by global darzaton error rate on the Call Home data usng as a benchmark [1], the only other study that evaluates performance n ths way. We have seen how our results usng other metrcs are smlar to the state-of-the art as reported by other authors [16][17][19][]. We have seen that refnng speaker boundares wth Vterb re-segmentaton s also helpful. Usng segment boundares obtaned n ths way could serve as a good ntalzaton for a second pass of Mean Shft clusterng. An nterestng complcaton that would arse n explorng ths avenue s that speaker turns would be of much more varable duraton than n the frst pass based on the unform segmentaton descrbed n Secton V.D. Snce the uncertanty entaled n estmatng an - vector n the case of short speaker turns than n the case of long speaker turns, ths suggests that takng account of ths uncertanty as n [3] would be helpful. APPENDIX In ths appendx we present the mathematcal convergence proof of the cosne dstance-based Mean Shft. Indeed, ths proof s very smlar the one of theorem 1 presented n [8]. Theorem 1 [8]: f the kernel k has a convex and monotoncally decreasng profle, the sequence { ˆf } =1,... converges, and s monotoncally ncreasng. Let us suppose that all vectors n our dataset are constraned to lve n the unt sphere by normalzng ther Eucldean-norm durng MS convergence process. ˆf j+1! ˆf n # j = c k 1! y " x +1 j #! k 1! y " y, / +.. j=1* h h - Due to the convexty of the profle: kx! kx 1 " k #x 1 x! x 1 and snce gx =!kx from 6 than: kx! kx 1 " gx 1 x 1! x we obtan: ˆf +1! ˆf n " c g 1! y # x j * 1! y # x j 0, j=1 h +,! 1! y +1 # x j n = c g 1! y # x j y x +1! y 0 j j=1 h h we know from 8 and 11 that the +1 th poston y +1 s equal to the weghted mean vector, so Thus: wth equalty ff y +1 = y. The sequence n # g 1! y " x j n # y +1 = g 1! y " x j x j. j=1 h j=1 h ˆf +1! ˆf n " c g 1! y # x j y * y +1! y +1 j=1 h h n = c g 1! y # x j 1! y * +1 # y " 0 j=1 h h { ˆf } =1,... s bounded and monotoncally ncreasng, and so s convergent. Ths argument does not show that {y } =1,... s convergent t may be possble to construct pathologcal examples n whch { ˆf } =1,... converges but {y } =1,... does not but t establshes convergence of the Mean Shft algorthm n the same sense as convergence of the EM algorthm s demonstrated n [33]. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Frst we would lke to thank the edtor as well as revewers for ther helpful comments. Then, we would lke to thank Stephen Shum and Najm Dehak from MIT for ther useful dscussons and feedback and also for sharng ther ntal segmentaton wth us. We would lke also to thank our colleague Vshwa Gupta for hs help wth Vterb resegmentaton software and our colleague Perre Ouellet for hs help wth other software. REFERENCES [1] G. Schwarz, Estmatng the dmenson of a model, Ann. Statst. 6, [] S. S. Chen and P. Gopalakrshnan, Clusterng va the bayesan nformaton crteron wth applcatons n speech recognton, n ICASSP 98, vol., Seattle, USA, 1998, pp [3] F. Valente, Varatonal Bayesan methods for audo ndexng, Ph.D. dssertaton, Eurecom, Sep 05. [4] P. Kenny, D. Reynolds and F. Castaldo, Darzaton of Telephone Conversatons usng Factor Analyss, Selected Topcs n Sgnal Processng, IEEE Journal of, vol.4, no.6, pp , Dec. 10. [5] Margarta Kott, Vasslk Moschou, Constantne Kotropoulos, Speaker segmentaton and clusterng, Sgnal Processng, Volume 88, Issue 5, May 08, Pages , ISSN , /j.sgpro [6] K. Fukunaga and L. Hostetler, The estmaton of the gradent of a densty functon, wth applcatons n pattern recognton, IEEE Trans. on Informaton Theory, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3 40, January h - /./
11 T-ASL [7] Y. Cheng, Mean Shft, Mode Seekng, and Clusterng, IEEE Trans. PAMI, vol. 17, no. 8, pp , [8] D. Comancu and P. Meer, Mean shft: A robust approach toward feature space analyss, IEEE Trans. Pattern Analyss and Machne Intellgence, vol. 4, no. 5, pp , May 0. [9] T. Stafylaks, V. Katsouros, and G. Carayanns, Speaker clusterng va the mean shft algorthm, n Odyssey 10: The Speaker and Language Recognton Workshop - Odyssey-10, Brno, Czech Republc, June 10. [10] T. Stafylaks, V. Katsouros, P. Kenny, and P. Dumouchel, Mean Shft Algorthm for Exponental Famles wth Applcatons to Speaker Clusterng, Proc. Odyssey Speaker and Language Recognton Workshop, Sngapore, June 1. [11] M. Senoussaou, P. Kenny, P. Dumouchel and T. Stafylaks, Effcent Iteratve Mean Shft based Cosne Dssmlarty for Mult-Recordng Speaker Clusterng, n Proceedngs of ICASSP, 13. [1] N. Dehak, P. Kenny, R. Dehak, P. Dumouchel, and P. Ouellet, Frontend factor analyss for speaker verfcaton, IEEE Transactons on Audo, Speech, and Language Processng, Vol. 19, No. 4, May 11, pp [13] N. Dehak, R. Dehak, J. Glass, D. Reynolds, and P. Kenny, "Cosne Smlarty Scorng wthout Score Normalzaton Technques," Proc. IEEE Odyssey Workshop, Brno, Czech Republc, June 10. [14] N. Dehak, Z. Karam, D. Reynolds, R. Dehak, W. Campbell, and J. Glass, "A Channel-Blnd System for Speaker Verfcaton," Proc. ICASSP, pp , Prague, Czech Republc, May 11. [15] M. Senoussaou, P. Kenny, N. Dehak and P. Dumouchel, An -vector Extractor Sutable for Speaker Recognton wth both Mcrophone and Telephone Speech, n Proc Odyssey Speaker and Language Recognton Workshop, Brno, Czech Republc, June 10. [16] S. Shum, N. Dehak, E. Chuangsuwanch, D. Reynolds, and J. Glass, "Explotng Intra-Conversaton Varablty for Speaker Darzaton," Proc. Interspeech, pp , Florence, Italy, August 11. [17] S. Shum, N. Dehak, and J. Glass, "On the Use of Spectral and Iteratve Methods for Speaker Darzaton," Proc. Interspeech, Portland, Oregon, September 1. [18] A. Martn and M. Przybock, Speaker recognton n a mult-speaker envronment, n Proceedngs of Eurospeech, 01. [19] E. Dalmasso, P. Laface, D. Colbro, C. Var, Unsupervsed Segmentaton and Verfcaton of Mult-Speaker Conversatonal Speech, Proc. Interspeech 05. [] F. Castaldo, D. Colbro, E. Dalmasso, P. Laface, and C. Var, Streambased speaker segmentaton usng speaker factors and egenvoces, n Proceedngs of ICASSP, 08. [1] C. Vaquero Avlés-Casco, Robust Darzaton For Speaker Characterzaton Darzacon Robusta Para Caracterzacon De Locutores, Ph.D. dssertaton, Zaragoza Unversty, 11. [] N. Dehak, P. Torres-Carrasqullo, D. Reynolds, and R. Dehak, "Language Recognton va Ivectors and Dmensonalty Reducton," Proc. Interspeech, pp , Florence, Italy, August 11. [3] D. Martnez, Oldrcht Plchot, Lukas Burget, Ondrej Glembek and Pavel Matejka, Language Recognton n Vectors Space, Proceedngs of Interspeech, Florence, Italy, August 11. [4] H. Tang, S.M. Chu, M. Hasegawa-Johnson and T.S. Huang, Partally Supervsed Speaker Clusterng, Pattern Analyss and Machne Intellgence, IEEE Transactons on, vol.34, no.5, pp.959, 971, May 1. [5] P. Kenny, Jont factor analyss of speaker and sesson varablty: theory and algorthms. Techncal report CRIM-06/08-14, 06. [6] P. Kenny, G. Boulanne, and P. Dumouchel, Egenvoce modelng wth sparse tranng data, IEEE Transactons on Speech and Audo Processng, May 05. [7] D. Comancu, V. Ramesh, and P. Meer, Kernel-based object trackng. IEEE Transactons on Pattern Analyss and Machne Intellgence, 55, [8] B. Georgescu, I. Shmshon, and P. Meer, Mean shft based clusterng n hgh dmensons: A texture classfcaton example, n Proceedngs of Internatonal Conference on Computer Vson pp [9] U. Ozertem, D. Erdogmus, R. Jenssen, Mean shft spectral clusterng. Pattern Recognton, Volume 41, Issue 6, June 08, Pages [30] D. Garca-Romero, Analyss of -vector length normalzaton n Gaussan-PLDA speaker recognton systems, n Proceedngs of Interspeech, Florence, Italy, Aug. 11. [31] D. Comancu, V. Ramesh, and P. Meer, The Varable Bandwdth Mean Shft and Data-Drven Scale Selecton, Proc Eghth Intl Conf. Computer Vson, vol. I, pp , July 01. [3] P. Kenny, T. Stafylaks, P. Ouellet, J. Alam, and P. Dumouchel, PLDA for Speaker Verfcaton wth Utterances of Arbtrary Duraton, In Proceedng of ICASSP, Vancouver, Canada, May 13. [33] A. P. Dempster, N. M. Lard, and D. B. Rubn, Maxmum lkelhood from ncomplete data va the EM algorthm, Journal of the Royal Statstcal Socety, Seres B Methodologcal, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 1 38, M. Senoussaou receved the Engneer degree n Artfcal Intellgence n 05 and Magster Masters degree n 07 from Unversté des Scences et de la Technologe d Oran, Algera. Currently h s a PhD student n the École de technologe supéreure ÉTS of Unversté du Québec, Canada and also wth Centre de recherche nformatque de Montréal CRIM, Canada. Hs research nterests are concentrated to the applcaton of Pattern Recognton and Machne learnng methods to the speaker verfcaton and Darzaton problems. P. Kenny receved the BA degree n Mathematcs from Trnty College, Dubln and the MSc and PhD degrees, also n Mathematcs, from McGll Unversty. He was a professor of Electrcal Engneerng at INRS- Telecommuncatons n Montreal from 1990 to1995 when he started up a company Spoken Word Technologes to spn off INRSs speech recognton technology. He joned CRIM n 1998 where he now holds the poston of prncpal research scentst. Hs current research nterests are n text-dependent and text-ndependent speaker recognton wth partcular emphass on Bayesan methods such as Jont Factor Analyss and Probablstc Lnear Dscrmnant Analyss. T. Stafylaks receved the Dploma degree n electrcal and computer engneerng from the Natonal Techncal Unversty of Athens NTUA, Athens, Greece, and the M.Sc. degree n communcaton and sgnal processng from Imperal College London, London, U.K., n 04 and 05, respectvely. He receved hs Ph.D. from NTUA on speaker darzaton, whle workng for the Insttute for Language and Speech Processng, Athens as research assstant. Snce 11, he s a post-doc researcher at CRIM and ETS, under the supervson of Patrck Kenny and Perre Dumouchel, respectvely. Hs current nterests are speaker recognton and darzaton, Bayesan modelng and multmeda sgnal analyss. P. Dumouchel receved B.Eng. McGll Unversty, M.Sc. INRS-Télécommuncatons, PhD INRS- Télécommuncatons, has over 5 years of experence n the feld of speech recognton, speaker recognton and emoton detecton. Perre s Charman and Professor at the Software Engneerng and IT Department at École de technologe supéreure ETS of Unversté du Québec, Canada.
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The winter of 2013-2014 was relatively mild in the Pacific Northwest. Still, there was plenty of snow in the Cascades. It is melting and filling the rivers, not to overflowing, but with water high and fast enough to pull trees out of the banks.
Here, you see the Yakima River at noon today carrying one of those trees southeast toward the Columbia. The National Weather Service reports that the Yakima is near flood stage in the river canyon between the towns of Yakima and Ellensburg, but no evacuations have been ordered for the few people who live there. So why even mention it? Because it's a pretense for presenting Jimmy Rushing's classic one-sided converation with a swollen river
Rushing's accompanists were Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. The track is from this album. For another recent Rifftides encounter with Rushing, go here.
Unrelatedly: happy Mothers Day to Rifftides readers and all you mothers.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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My Opinion About FullyFisted
Pussies cross an extreme spectrum. Some chicks are so tight that you can barely press a finger through their tiny holes. Others, on the other hand, have such flexibility that every size will easily slide inside. However, for these chicks a dick just won't do. Size does indeed matter to this breed of slut, which is probably why some of them resort to being Fully Fisted.
For those of you who love to give a helping hand, FullyFisted offers the opportunity to experience one of the most extreme sex acts on the planet. Seriously, being able to sink your whole hand and wrist into a pussy is a wild and unforgettable ride and even though I've experienced it and seen it many times, it never ceases to amaze and thrill me. It takes a special slut to be able to handle a whole hand, which is probably why the site only features about 12 episodes at the moment. Such sluts can't be easy to find, but I'd still expect more frequent updates from this site.
It looks like content was first added in May 2008, so it's still fresh and still needs to grow. However, only two new movies are being added every month, so it's not going to be overflowing with fisting action for a while, yet. Good thing the membership comes with another 18 exclusive fetish and hardcore sites like StretchingSessions, TwistedObjects and VeggieBang. There are also 57 video feed sites available and access to live chat. Since there isn't a lot of content, there aren't any problems with navigation. All 12 episodes are listed on a single page with a short description and the name of the model. I guess the only question to ask is whether or not the babes are hot and the action is as awesome as the site tour might lead us to believe.
Chicks are attractive enough amateurs. You can get a good look at their faces and bodies by checking out the 640x480 screencaps or the 1024x683 digital photo sets. There are roughly 200 images in a set and you can view them in a slideshow. They're rough around the edges and the lighting is sometimes a bit dark, but the image itself is clean. Mostly, the sets follow the action, but the digital pictures give you a much closer view of pussy than the screenshots. There are some fabulous shots as the guys fingers inch into the pussy, but there weren't a lot of great shots of their hands completely submerged. Still, some of these photos are worth saving, yet since there isn't a .zip file, you'll have to pick and choose which images are worth keeping.
Movies are available in full-length and can be downloaded in smaller clips. There are low and high qualities and WMV (1200kbps 320x240) and MPEG formats. The one thing I loved about the films is that they never waiver from the fisting. Movies, which are roughly 15 minutes long, open with interviews. The chicks show off their pussies and talk about how they stretch really wide. I watched a couple of films, but the chicks pussies didn't quite open as wide as I may have loved. There's a lot of over-acting and moaning that is a little too far fetched for me, but some of you might enjoy the added excitement of a chick practically screaming as she's being fingered. There were only a few chicks able to take a whole hand, but you have to give the other bitches credit for trying.
Final Verdict
Fully Fisted isn't quite what I expected. I loved the fisting focus, but it was obvious that not all the chicks were experienced with fitting a whole hand inside their boxes. However, this has a certain excitement as well, if only because it goes to show that fisting isn't an easy feat. The movie and photo quality is great and there is a ton of extra content with the membership, there's just not a whole lot of fisting action at the moment and with only two updates a month, there won't be a lot of fisting for awhile.
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|Banner of the Imperial Scout Service (Detached-Titanium)
UPP: 39998B [GP: 000000], Age: 50 (born 000-0150 PIY), Terms: 1 College, 7 Scout.
- It is said in some circles mostly Scout bases and way stations and some rather interesting circles at Court and a few board rooms is that McHenry who while famous in the service had some how deflected all the fame that he should have received. Rumor has it while a fine Survey Scout, he is one of the worst on a First Contact Team. These same back channels say that Vladimir the Second got wind of the scheme and had McHenry brought be for him, a deal was forged, and McHenry would be declared "MIJ", leave the Scouts and disappear. If anyone discovered and the jig is up, Vlad has the most over-hyped, ostentatious knighting ceremony planned and primed.


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Member of Bionow
Albumedix helps biopharmaceutical companies improve patient outcomes with a range of albumin-based products and technologies that facilitate the development of superior biotherapeutics.
Albumedix develops albumin-based products and technologies for advanced drug and vaccine formulation, extended drug half-life and improved drug delivery. Our products and technologies are used in clinical and marketed drugs and out-licensed to pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide. With over 25 years' experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, we have the scientific, technical and regulatory expertise needed to support companies in moving faster to market with superior biotherapeutics. We also use this expertise to strengthen our own drug pipeline. Albumedix is a global company and fully owned subsidiary of Novozymes.
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News Briefs
Launched in 2012, Virginia Wesleyan's Global Scholars Program aims to increase the number of semester abroad experiences for students. Made possible by a gift from an anonymous donor, the award program covers costs associated with travel, room, board, tuition and other fees for approximately 15 study abroad experiences each year. Students from all majors are chosen through a competitive application and interview process. The Lighthouse Center for Exploration and Discovery recently announced the Spring 2017 Global Scholars. These are an exceptional group of students who are preparing to broaden their horizons and enhance their understanding of the global world. The students and their destinations are as follows: Ashley Bologna (Universidad de Congreso, Argentina), Kenneth Downing (Goethe Institut, Germany), Alexandra Ghazaleh (James Cook University, Australia), Edwin Kinsey (University of Otago, New Zealand), Manijha Mack (Universidad de la Habana, Cuba), Ashley Peterson (Universidad de Salamanca, Spain), Emilee Pierson (Universidad de Belgrano, Argentina), Kathleen Roberts (Charles University, Czech Republic), Sheril Steinberg (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile), and Alexis Vassiliadis (Florence University of the Arts, Italy).


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- Description
DetailsType III: The NRS Crew Universal PFD is ideal for flatwater boating and close-to-shore safety. No frills or fancy stuff; this life jacket just offers safety and all-day wearing comfort.
- This jacket has a full 16.5 pounds of PVC-Free foam flotation for high floating safety.
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- Design flotation: 16.5 lbs.


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Strengths And Weaknesses List
Below we provide a full work-based strengths and weaknesses list and coverage of how to handle the strengths and weaknesses questions at interview. Discover your own strengths by taking our DISC Assessment Test.
How to use our strengths and weaknesses list
Identifying and understanding your strengths and weaknesses is critical in CV/Resume and interview preparation. We have also developed an automatic system which will outline your strengths and weaknesses for you which you can use in addition to this list. For fastest results, take the DISC Assessment Test now.
We provide guides for each strength in this list showing you how to improve and capitalise on your strength and then for weaknesses we provide information and help to mitigate your weaknesses.
Tips for Strengths and Weaknesses At Interviews
At interview, only talk about weaknesses which you can either transform into strengths or you can demonstrate you've managed to overcome through training. WARNING: DON'T follow the bad advice of some other sites and use weaknesses such as "I'm a perfectionist" or "I work too hard" - these are obvious and when interviewers hear them what they actually hear is "I do not know myself, I'm not self-aware, therefore I will be a bad team-mate or my weaknesses are too big to talk about openly and I will be a disastrous hire" - you don't want the interviewer thinking any of this.
For a better example, I personally have historically had a problem with 'time management' but I've overcome this through training and use of various systems including something called 'Time Boxing'. I can now talk about this comfortably at interview as it is no longer an active weakness at work, although it still exists in my underlying behaviour as a natural tendency.
It's important that you talk about a weakness which is ACTUALLY YOURS as good interviewers at the better companies will be talented at spotting which weaknesses people are likely to have. If they are using psychometrics (such as the products we sell) then they will actually be forewarned about your likely weaknesses prior to meeting you. You should not be afraid of this - instead, learn your weaknesses and work with a little training to overcome or reduce them - then talk about these efforts you've made when talking about your weaknesses.
When you talk about your weaknesses openly and the training you've used to overcome then what employers/interviewers hear is "I am confident, self-aware and committed to improving myself so I can be of more benefit to my company". That's a far stronger message to get across.
Understanding Your Own Strengths And Weaknesses
The strengths and weaknesses list presented below is grouped into 4 sections, for each factor of the DISC profiling system. Learn more about DISC personality types here.
The personality strengths are listed first, in order of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness then Compliance DISC factors followed by the weaknesses in the same order.
For BEST and EASIEST results, Take Our DISC Assessment and we'll automatically tell you what your strengths & weaknesses are, plus much much more...
Strengths List
High D - dominance - strengths list
The first factor in the DISC system is Dominance. People with a high D in their personality profile tend to have the following strengths:
High I - influence - strengths list
The second factor in the DISC system is Influence. People with a high I in their personality profile tend to have the following strengths:
- Influencing people to act positively and favourably.
- Contacting a wide variety of people
- Making favourable first impressions.
- Natural verbaliser.
- Exhibiting poise
- Motivating others to act.
- Desiring to help others
- Generating enthusiasm.
- Entertaining people.
- Participating in the community.
- Radiating optimism.
High S - steadiness - strengths list
The third factor in the DISC system is Steadiness. People with a high S in their personality profile tend to have the following strengths:
- Performing to an acceptable work pattern.
- Sitting or staying at one place.
- Can be very patient
- Likes to develop special skills.
- Tends to concentrate on the task on hand.
- Expresses satisfaction with the job.
- Demonstrates strong loyalty
- Can be calm and composed
- Tends to be a good listener.
- Good at stabilising excited people.
High C - compliance - strengths list
The fourth and final factor in the DISC system is Steadiness. People with a high S in their personality profile tend to have the following strengths:
- Likes to follow instructions and directions.
- Very interested in quality.
- Good at concentrating on detail.
- Prefers to operate under controlled circumstances.
- Tends to be diplomatic with people.
- Checks for accuracy
- Complies with the rules
- Will adhere to procedure.
- Will seek to avoid trouble.
- Good at criticising performance.
+1 the page to reveal 40 natural strengths. Alternatively, take our DISC Assessment to discover your strengths automatically.
Weaknesses List
High D - dominance - personality weaknesses
- May overstep prerogatives.
- Tends to act restlessly.
- Can inspire fear in others at times.
- May override people.
- Can be blunt and sarcastic.
- May sulk if not in the limelight.
- Is critical and faultfinding.
- May not take care of the fine detail.
- Becomes dissatisfied with routine.
- Can resist participation as part of the team.
High I - influence - personality weaknesses
- More concerned with popularity than results.
- May oversell.
- Can act impulsively at times.
- May be inconsistent in drawing conclusions.
- Tends to make decisions based on surface analysis.
- Can be unrealistic when appraising people.
- May be inattentive to detail.
- Tends to trust people indiscriminately.
- Can have difficulty with time management.
- Can appear superficial.
High S - steadiness - personality weaknesses
- Likes to maintain the status quo.
- Can take a long time to adjust to change.
- Sometimes has trouble meeting deadlines.
- May lack the ability to prioritise.
- Can be lacking in imagination.
- Tends to like things just the way they are.
- May hold a grudge.
- Sometimes too relaxed.
- May appear to lack a sense of urgency.
High C - compliance - personality weaknesses
- May be over-reliant on the roles.
- May hesitate to act without a precedent.
- Can get bound up with procedures and methods.
- Sometimes can get bogged down in detail.
- Can be reluctant to accept responsibility.
- Looks for full explanation before changes are accepted.
- Can pass the buck when pressured.
- Will yield position to avoid controversy.
- Can become very defensive at perceived threats.
- Outside own area of expertise can be very easily led.
+1 the page to reveal 40 natural weaknesses. Alternatively, take our DISC assessment test to discover your weaknesses automatically.
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Click +1 to reveal a printable PDF of 80 strengths and weaknesses + 6 top tips for answering the strength question ...
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80 Strengths PDF
DISC Assessment Test
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First, I will start with the Main Kit. This kit was full of Echo Parks Seasons Greetings Collection, with a little bit of Bo Bunny's Blitzen Collection.
Next is the Album Kit. I absolutely loved this kit...it's loaded with Melissa Frances Deck the Halls Collection and the mini album is Melisa Frances envelope album


text: EducateYourself.org By J.A. Miller, correspondent for Human Life International. http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/vcdvaccineslacedwithbirthcontrol.shtml June/July 1995 Originally published in HLI Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June/July 1995, Volume 13, Number 8 Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs? During the early 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been overseeing massive vaccination campaigns against tetanus in a number of […][Continue reading...]


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