<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: -webkit-monospace; font-size: 12px; "><div>A position exists for a Research Associate to work on the EMIME ("Efficient multilingual interaction in mobile environment") project. This project is funded by the European Commission within the FP7 programme. The project aims to develop a mobile device that performs personalized speech-to-speech translation such that a user's spoken input in one language is used to produce spoken output in another language, while continuing to sound like the user's voice. We will build on recent developments in speech synthesis using hidden Markov models, which is the same technology used for automatic speech recognition. Using a common statistical modelling framework for automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis will enable the use of common techniques for adaptation and multilinguality. The project objectives are to </div><div><br></div><div>1. Personalise speech processing systems by learning individual characteristics of a user's speech and reproducing them in synthesised speech. </div><div>2. Introduce a cross-lingual capability such that personal characteristics can be reproduced in a second language not spoken by the user. </div><div>3. Develop and better understand the mathematical and theoretical relationship between speech recognition and synthesis. </div><div>4. Eliminate the need for human intervention in the process of cross-lingual personalisation. </div><div>5. Evaluate our research against state-of-the art techniques and in a practical mobile application. </div><div>See the EMIME website for more information: <a href="http://www.emime.org/">http://www.emime.org/</a> </div><div><br></div><div>This is an opportunity to work in a research group with a world-leading reputation in speech recognition and statistical machine translation research. There are excellent opportunities for publications, travel and conference visits. The group has outstanding research facilities. For suitably qualified candidates there may also be the chance to contribute to the MPhil in Computer Speech, Text and Internet Technology (<a href="http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/cstit/">http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/cstit/</a>). </div><div><br></div><div>The successful candidate must have a very good first degree in a relevant discipline and preferably have a higher degree as well as experience in acoustic modeling for speech synthesis and/or recognition. Expertise in one or more of the following technical areas is also a distinct advantage: </div><div>- speech recognition with the HTK toolkit (<a href="http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk">http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk</a>) </div><div>- speech synthesis with the HTS HMM-based Speech Synthesis System (<a href="http://hts.sp.nitech.ac.jp">http://hts.sp.nitech.ac.jp</a>) </div><div>- weighted finite state transducers for speech and language processing </div><div>The project focus is acoustic modeling but experience in statistical machine translation is also an advantage. </div><div><br></div><div>The cover sheet for applications, PD18 is available from <a href="http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/personnel/forms/pd18/">http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/personnel/forms/pd18/</a> Part I and Part III only, should be sent, with a letter and CV to Dr Bill Byrne, Department of Engineering, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, (Fax +44 01223 332662, email <a href="mailto:wjb31@cam.ac.uk">wjb31@cam.ac.uk</a>).</div><div><div><p align="">Quote Reference: NA03547, Closing Date: 30 June 2008</p></div></div><div><div>The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.</div><div><br></div></div><div apple-content-edited="true"><div><div>--</div><div>Bill Byrne</div><div>Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge</div><div><a href="http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~wjb31">http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~wjb31</a> </div><div><br></div></div></div></span></body></html>