Next Generation Speech Science and Technologies - A Cross-Country Joint Project for Collaboration between Speech Research Labs in Taiwan and in Japan Lin-shan Lee, Sin-Horng Chen, Hsiao-Chuan Wang, Chiu-yu Tseng, Berlin Chen, Jen-Tzung Chien, Lee-Feng Chien, Jeih-Weih Hung, Yuan-Fu Liao, Hsin-min Wang, Yih-Ru Wang

Members in Taiwan Lin-shan Lee 李琳山 Professor & Research Fellow National Taiwan University &Academia Sinica

Members in Taiwan Sin-Horng Chen 陳信宏 Professor National Chiao Tung University

Members in Taiwan Hsiao-Chuan Wang 王小川 Professor National Tsing Hua University

Members in Taiwan Chiu-yu Tseng 鄭秋豫 Professor & Research Fellow Academia Sinica

Members in Taiwan Berlin Chen 陳柏琳 Assistant Professor National Taiwan Normal University

Members in Taiwan Jen-Tzung Chien 簡仁宗 Associate Professor National Cheng Kung University

Members in Taiwan Lee-Feng Chien 簡立峰 Research Fellow Academia Sinica & National Taiwan University

Members in Taiwan Jeih-weih Hung 洪志偉 Assistant Professor National Chi Nan University

Members in Taiwan Yuan-Fu Liao 廖元甫 Assistant Professor National Taipei University of Technology

Members in Taiwan Hsin-min Wang 王新民 Associate Research Fellow Academia Sinica

Members in Taiwan Yih-Ru Wang 王逸如 Associate Professor National Chiao Tung University

Project Structure Main Project: Theme: New Generation Speech Science and Technologies Sub-project (I): Prosody, Tones and Text-to-speech Synthesis Areas: prosody analysis and modeling, tone behavior and modeling, applications in text-to-speech synthesis and speech/speaker recognition, etc. Sub-project (II): Robustness in Speech Recognition Areas: robustness in speech recognition with respect to various disturbances and variabilities using approaches on the signal level, model level and lexical level, etc. Sub-project (III): Spoken Language Systems Areas: information extraction and retrieval, spoken document understanding and organization, spoken dialogues, distributed speech recognition, etc.

International Partners of the Project The University of Tsukuba (Prof. Shuichi Itahashi) The University of Tokyo (Prof. Keikichi Hirose) Tokyo Institute of Technology (Prof. Sadaoki Furui) Waseda University (Prof. Yoshinori Sagisaka) Kyoto University (Prof. Tatsuya Kawahara) Satellite1 Satellite2 Satellite3 Satellite4 Satellite5 Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute (ATR) (Dr. Satoshi Nakamura)

Project Goals (1/2) Teaming up the Majority of Key Researchers in Speech Science and Technologies in Taiwan –11 members across 7 universities and Academia Sinica, senior and younger –actually a national delegation Forming an Integrated Research Group with Focused Directions –three sub-projects closely integrated Exchanging and Learning Research Experiences from Colleagues in Japan, and Developing Real Collaboration Relationships –international partners in Japan including ATR as the core and five university labs as initial satellites

Project Goals (2/2) Possible Collaboration Areas –any area of common interests, mentioned or not in our presentation/website, related to Chinese language or not –willing to offer experiences in Chinese if helpful, e.g. for cross-language technologies Project Website:

Multi-lingual Environment in Future Networks—Roles of Japanese and Chinese Languages Internet Users by Language (end of 2004, total million) Clear Trend –Non-English users continuously increasing –Japanese and Chinese are currently (and may continuously be) the two largest non-English groups Collaboration between the Two Languages should Break New Grounds for Future Multi-lingual Network World English, 35.90% Chinese, 13.20% Japanese, 8.30% German, 6.80% Spanish, 6.70% French, 4.40% Korean, 3.80% Italian, 3.60% Portuguese, 2.90% Dutch, 1.70% All Others, 12.70%

Conclusion We Look forward to Unlimited Space for Future Developments of Speech Science and Technologies Collaboration between the Two Largest Non-English Languages should Break New Grounds for the Future We are Seeking Collaboration Opportunities in All Areas We can Function as a Window for Chinese Speech Science and Technologies