Sharif Digital Repository

An stochastic version of the classical shortest path problem whereby for each node of a graph, a probability distribution over the set of successor nodes must be chosen so as to reach a certain destination node with minimum expected cost. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for solving Stochastic Shortest Path Problem (SSPP). The comparison of our algorithm with other algorithms indicates that its performance is suitable even by the less number of iterations. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg  

A Comprehensive speech database is one of the important tools for developing speech recognition systems; these tools are necessary for telephony recognition, too. Although adequate databases for direct speech recognizers exist, there is not an appropriate database for telephony speech recognizers. Most methods suggested for solving this problem are based on building new databases which tends to consume much time and many resources; or they used a filter which simulates circuit switch behavior to transform direct databases to telephony ones, in this case resulted databases have many differences with real telephony databases. In this paper we introduce a framework for creating telephony speech... 

In this paper a new method for automatic word clustering is presented. We used this method for building n-gram language models for Persian continuous speech recognition (CSR) systems. In this method, each word is specified by a feature vector that represents the statistics of parts of speech (POS) of that word. The feature vectors are clustered by k-means algorithm. Using this method causes a reduction in time complexity which is a defect in other automatic clustering methods. Also, the problem of high perplexity in manual clustering methods is abated. The experimental results are based on "Persian Text Corpus" which contains about 9 million words. The extracted language models are evaluated... 

Class-based n-gram language models are those most frequently-used in continuous speech recognition systems, especially for languages for which no richly annotated corpora are available. Various word clustering algorithms have been proposed to build such class-based models. In this work, we discuss the superiority of soft approaches to class construction, whereby each word can be assigned to more than one class. We also propose a new method for possibilistic word clustering. The possibilistic C-mean algorithm is used as our clustering method. Various parameters of this algorithm are investigated; e.g., centroid initialization, distance measure, and words' feature vector. In the experiments... 

Using word base n-gram language models in continuous speech recognition systems is so prevalent. For using this type of language models, we should extract them from large corpora. Since Persian corpora are not rich, therefore the extracted language models are not credible. For this reason, most researchers extract class n-grams instead of finding word n-grams. In this research a new idea for fuzzy word clustering is represented that each word can be assigned to more that one class. The Fuzzy c-mean algorithm is used for our clustering method and we have examined its various parameters of it. Finally, this algorithm was applied on 20000 most frequent Persian words extracted from "Persian Text... 

One of the roles of a Natural Language Processing (NLP) model in Continuous Speech Recognition (CSR) systems is to find the best sentence hypothesis by ranking all n-best sentences according to the grammar. This paper describes a robust parsing algorithm for Spoken Language Recognition (SLR) which utilizes a technique that improves the efficiency of parsing. This technique integrates grammatical and statistical approaches, and by using a best-first parsing strategy improves the accuracy of recognition. Preliminary experimental results using a Persian continuous speech recognition system show effective improvements in accuracy with little change in recognition time. The word error rate was... 

Learning a foreign language encompasses a process of trial and error that can lead to the progression of the learner's interlanguage, meaning that the learners make use of their language knowledge that receives feedback and brings about progress through diagnosis of the problems and being corrected by the teacher. Therefore, there exists a need to analyze the underlying reasons causing the students to remain taciturn with a low willingness to communicate (WTC) during a language class. There has been much work done investigating the role of the learner's stable personal characteristics (traits) along with their situational changes at a specific time (states) that influence the student's... 

Using 3-D scanned data to analyze and extract pore network plays a vital role in investigation of porous media's characteristics. In this paper, a new simple method is developed to detect pores and throats for analyzing the connectivity and permeability of the network. This automated method utilizes some of the common and well-known image processing functions which are widely accessible by researchers and this has led to an easy algorithm implementation. In this method, after polishing and quality control of images, using city-block distance function and watershed segmentation algorithm, pores and throats are detected and 3-D network is produced. This method can also be applied on 2-D images... 

In this paper, we try to recognize and distinguish different groups of arrhythmia using novel features which have been obtained from the heart rate's phase space in recent years. For this purpose, we used Triangular Phase Space Mapping (TPSM) and Parabolic Phase Space Mapping (PPSM). For recognition, we used three groups of 15 subjects using the Physionet database (Arrhythmia, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), and Atrial Fibrillation (AF)) with Normal Sinus Rhythm (NSR). The obtained features discriminate arrhythmia from NSR by p