12.0288 announcements

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Sat, 7 Nov 1998 03:21:43 +0000 (GMT)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 288.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

[1] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (55)
Subject: Fwd: Communications-related Headlines for 11/04/98

[2] From: Lorna Hughes <lorna.hughes@nyu.edu> (53)
Subject: Groden Talk Text

[3] From: "Nancy M. Ide" <ide@cs.vassar.edu> (56)
Subject: New Book: EuroWordNet

[4] From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu> (409)
Subject: ELRA News

[5] From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu> (19)
Subject: NEH Summer Teacher Seminars

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:49:10 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: Fwd: Communications-related Headlines for 11/04/98

NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
November 4, 1998

SURVEY SHOWS DRAMATIC INCREASE IN INTERNET USE ON U.S. CAMPUSES
<http://www.campuscomputing.net/>

>Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:51:47 -0500>Subject:
>Communications-related Headlines for 11/04/98>
>==================================================
>Communications-related Headlines is a free daily online news
>service provided by the Benton Foundation. It will keep you up
>to date on important industry developments, policy issues, and
>other pertinent communications-related news events.
>You can visit the Benton's Web site at <www.benton.org>.
>==================================================
>COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for NOVEMBER 4, 1998

>SNIP>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>========
>INTERNET
>========
>
>SURVEY SHOWS A SHARP RISE IN NET-SAVVY ACADEMICS
>Issue: EdTech

Parts of the 1998 Campus Computing Project survey
<http://www.campuscomputing.net/> were released this week reporting that
college professors are embracing the Internet as a tool for teaching.

The survey of 571 technology officials at two- and four-year colleges
around the country reports that 44% of college courses use e-mail in some
way -- that number was 32.8% last year and just 8% four years ago.

23% of college courses use Web pages to post class materials and other
resources; four years ago, the figure was less than 5%. About 43% of
respondents said their institutions had a computer competency requirement
for undergraduates; in 1992, the figure was 30%.

Computer ownership among students is up: this year the figure was 42% of
students, more than double the figure five years ago.

The biggest problems faced on campus is still assisting professors to
integrate technology use into the classroom and intellectual property
questions.

>[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Pamela Mendels
><mendels@nytimes.com>]
><http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/11/cyber/education/04education.html>
>
>(c)Benton Foundation, 1998. Redistribution of this email publication -- both
>internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message.
>
===============================================================

David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@ninch.org
202/296-5346 202/872-0886 fax

==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at
<http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 14:30:53 -0400
From: Lorna Hughes <lorna.hughes@nyu.edu>
Subject: Groden Talk Text

All are welcome to attend the latest NEACH Talk at NYU, organized by the
Humanities Computing Group at NYU's Academic Computing Facility

James Joyce's _Ulysses_ in Hypermedia:
Presenting the Novel of the Twentieth Century in the Twenty-first

Michael Groden
Department of English
University of Western Ontario

Friday, November 13, 1998 at 2:00 PM
Room 101, Warren Weaver Hall
251 Mercer Street, at West Fourth
New York
NY 10012

James Joyce's _Ulysses_ is an ideal literary work to present in
hypermedia. With its stream-of-consciousness technique to reveal its
characters thoughts; its many allusions to works of literature, art, and
music, both high and popular; and the library of criticism and scholarship
that it has inspired, it is no wonder that many people have been referring
to it lately as a hypertext before its time. Presenting _Ulysses_ in
hypermedia format will give readers, students, and scholars a new context
in which to read and study the book. It will also teach us a lot about the
differences between presenting a literary work in print and on a screen
and about the ways in which a work originally written for print changes
when it is put into an electronic hypermedia environment.

James Joyce's _Ulysses_ in Hypermedia will include the text of _Ulysses_,
in several versions; published and newly written definitions and
annotations; an archive of major published critical books and articles;
source works such as _The Odyssey_ and _Hamlet_; basic help for students;
original commentaries on _Ulysses_, written in hypertext; maps;
photographs; video or film versions of passages from _Ulysses_; an audio
version of the book; recordings of songs mentioned, quoted, or sung; an
aural pronunciation guide; searching and indexing features; and space for
users to add comments and links. Over 100 _Ulysses_ critics and scholars
are contributing to make this enormous project a reality.

In his talk Michael Groden will show the prototype and will also discuss
the intriguing issues and problems that have come up in the process of
transforming the prototype into a full presentation.

About the Speaker: Michael Groden is Professor of English at the
University of Western Ontario. He is the director of the ongoing
_Ulysses_ hypermedia project, the prototype of which was produced at NYUs
Interactive Telecommunications Program. Visit his Web site:
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/

For further information, please contact Lorna Hughes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorna M. Hughes E-mail: Lorna.Hughes@NYU.EDU

Assistant Director for Humanities Computing Phone: (212) 998 3070
Academic Computing Facility Fax: (212) 995 4120
New York University
251 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10012-1185, USA

http://www.nyu.edu/acf/humanities/

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 00:02:17 -0500
From: "Nancy M. Ide" <ide@cs.vassar.edu>
Subject: New Book: EuroWordNet

[ Part 2: "Included Message" ]

From: "Nancy M. Ide" <ide@cs.vassar.edu>

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+
NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK NEW BOOK
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

Kluwer Academic Publishers

EUROWORDNET
A Multilingual Database with Lexical Semantic Networks

Piek Vossen, Editor

Reprinted from
Computers and the Humanities, 32:2-3 (1998)

Table of Contents
------------------

PIEK VOSSEN
Introduction to EuroWordNet
73-89

ANTONIETTA ALONGE, NICOLETTA CALZOLARI, PIEK VOSSEN, LAURA BLOKSMA,
IRENE CASTELLON, MARIA ANTONIA MARTI and WIM PETERS
The Linguistic Design of the EuroWordNet Database
91-115

HORACIO RODRIDGUEZ, SALVADOR CLIMENT, PIEK VOSSEN, LAURA BLOKSMA,
WIM PETERS, ANTONIETTA ALONGE, FRANCESCA BERTAGNA and ADRIANA
ROVENTINI
The Top-Down Strategy for Building EuroWordNet:
Vocabulary Coverage, Base Concepts and Top Ontology
117-152

PIEK VOSSEN, LAURA BLOKSMA, ANTONIETTA ALONGE, ELISABETTA MARINAI,
CAROL PETERS, IRENE CASTELLON, ANTONIA MARTI and GERMAN RIGAU
Compatibility in Interpretation of Relations in EuroWordNet
153-184

JULIO GONZALO, FELISA VERDEJO, CAROL PETERS and NICOLETTA CALZOLARI
Applying EuroWordNet to Cross-Language Text Retrieval
185-207

CHRISTIANE FELLBAUM
A Semantic Network of English: The Mother of All WordNets
209-220

WIM PETERS, PIEK VOSSEN, PEDRO DIEZ-ORZAS and GEERT ADRIAENS
Cross-linguistic Alignment of Wordnets
with an Inter-Lingual-Index
221-251

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
EuroWordNet: A Multilingual Database with Lexical Semantic Networks
Piek Vossen, Editor
ISBN 0-7923-5295-5

For information, consult the Kluwer web page:

http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/

Or contact:

Dieke van Wijnen
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Spuiboulevard 50
P.O. Box 17
3300 AA Dordrecht
The Netherlands

Phone: (+31) 78 639 22 64
Fax: (+31) 78 639 22 54
E-mail: Dieke.vanWijnen@wkap.nl

--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 16:26:12 -0500 (EST)
From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu>
Subject: ELRA News

>> From: <mapelli@elda.fr>

___________________________________________________________
ELRA
European Language Resources Association
ELRA News=20
___________________________________________________________

*** SPEECHDAT DATABASES ***

Dear colleagues,

As many of you expressed a strong interest in the SpeechDat databases, ELRA
is pleased to announce the list of SpeechDat and SpeechDat-like databases
currently available. Other languages to be issued soon are: Swedish,
Norwegian, German SpeechDat(II) FDB-4000, Spanish.

The following SpeechDat and SpeechDat-like databases are currently=
available:

=B7 ELRA-S0010 Dutch Polyphone Database
=B7 ELRA-S0011 English SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0012 English SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
=B7 ELRA-S0016 FRESCO French SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0017 FRESCO French SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
=B7 ELRA-S0018 German SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0018 German SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0030/01 Swiss-French polyphone database - 1000 speakers
=B7 ELRA-S0030/02 Swiss-French polyphone database - 4000 speakers
=B7 ELRA-S0040 Danish SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0041 Danish SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
=B7 ELRA-S0051 German SpeechDat(II) FDB 1000
=B7 ELRA-S0052 FIXED0IT - Italian Fixed Network Speech (SpeechDat(M)) Corpu=
s
- DB1
=B7 ELRA-S0053 FIXED0IT - Italian Fixed Network Speech (SpeechDat(M)) Corpu=
s
- DB2
=B7 ELRA-S0054 Chilean Spanish FDB-250
=B7 ELRA-S0055 Russian SpeechDat-like FDB-1000
=B7 ELRA-S0056 Slovenian SpeechDat(II) FDB-1000
=B7 ELRA-S0057 Shanghai Mandarin FDB-1000

Below a description of each database:

ELRA-S0010 Dutch Polyphone Database
The Dutch Polyphone corpus contains telephone speech from 5050 speakers.
The corpus comprises 222,075 speech files (based on 44 or, in a few cases
43 items per speaker), which all have been orthographically transcribed.
The data were collected in 8-bit A-law digital form, directly off an ISDN
telephone line interface.=20
The corpus contains both read and extemporaneous items. Items to be read
consist of isolated digits, numbers (one telephone number, two bank
accounts or credit card numbers, and the participation number), a postal
code, guilder amounts, time, date, amounts, application words, sentences
with application word, phonetically rich sentences, spelled words, city
names. Several questions were asked to get the spontaneous part of the
speech (questions like Is Dutch your native language?, Did you ever live in
another country than the Netherlands, In which cities did you grow up?, Are
you a man or a woman?, Are you calling from your home phone?, etc.).

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use. 12000 ECU for research use. 20000 ECU
for commercial use. 25000 ECU for commercial use. 35000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0011 English SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
The (polyphone-like) English SpeechDat(M) database was recorded by
GEC-Marconi within the framework of the SPEECHDAT(M) Project. It consists
of 1,000 speakers, chosen according to their individual demographics, who
were recorded over digital telephone lines using fixed telephone sets. The
material to be spoken was provided to the caller via a prompt sheet. The
database is divided into two sub-sets: the phonetically rich sentences (one
CD) known as DB2, and the application-oriented utterances (two CDs) known
as DB1.
The recorded material in DB1 comprises immediately usable and relevant
speech, including number and letter sequences, common control keywords,
dates, times, money amounts, etc. This provides a realistic basis for
evaluating these resources for the training and assessment of
speaker-independent recognition of both isolated and continuous speech
utterances, employing either whole-word modeling and/or phoneme based
approaches.
The sample rate for speech is 8 KHz, quantisation is 8 bit, and a-law
encoding is used. This results in a data rate of 64 kB/s.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 11000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0012 English SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
See ELRA-S0011 for description. DB2 is a sub-set of DB1; it contains only
the phonetically rich sentences items

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 6000 ECU for research use: 10000 ECU
for commercial use: 12000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0016 FRESCO - DB1
FRESCO, a polyphone-like telephone speech database in French, was produced
by Philips and SPEX as part of the SpeechDat(M) project. Containing
approximately 35,000 utterances recorded from 1,000 callers over the
terrestrial telephone network in France, it offers immediately usable and
relevant speech for the training, assessment and deployment of
speaker-independent speech recognisers based on phoneme models or word
models. In addition to a speech and annotation file for every utterance,
the database contains a pronunciation lexicon for all 13,000 different
words recorded. The database consists of two two subsets DB1 and DB2. DB1
contains the complete set of data (phonetically rich sentences and
application oriented data). DB2 contains only the phonetically rich
sentences.=20
The speaker set is balanced with respect to gender and adheres to a
predefined age distribution, while the geographic distribution roughly
resembles the demographics of France.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 11000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0017 FRESCO - DB2
See ELRA-S0016 for description. DB2 is a sub-set of DB1; it contains only
the phonetically rich sentences items

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 6000 ECU for research use: 10000 ECU
for commercial use: 12000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0018 German SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
The database consists of read speech. A prompt sheet with a unique
identification number has been distributed to the potential callers.=20
The speech data is recorded with digital lines (ISDN), resulting in A-law
format (8 bit), 8 kHz sampling rate. The data collection comprises 1000
speakers, with a particular care of a balance with respect to gender. The
age of the callers were to be between 16 and 65 (No controlled=
distribution).
Callers could call from any kind of acoustic and network environment: home,
business, mobile phone, phone booth, wired or cordless phone, etc. (No
controlled distribution).=20
The regional distribution was expected to fit within the following scheme:
from each of the 16 German states there were to be 32 speakers. Speakers
from Austria, Switzerland and other countries were not be controlled. The
utterances to be gathered have been specified and consisted of several
speech sequences, including sentences from different sources (local
newspapers, existing corpora, law articles, etc.) to ensure a good phonetic
coverage, application words from a defined list of command words, digits
(isolated digits, connected digits, and natural numbers), currency amounts,
quantities, credit card numbers, spelled words (mainly names), time of day
(spontaneous) and time phrase (prompted, word style), city of call/birth,=
etc.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 11000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0019 German SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
See ELRA-S0018 for description. DB2 is a sub-set of DB1; it contains only
the phonetically rich sentences items

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 8800 ECU for research use: 14000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0030/01 Swiss-French polyphone database - 1000 speakers
Like the Dutch and German polyphone corpora this is a Polyphone-like
database recorded in Switzerland to cover the French language as spoken in
the Roman area.=20
Recording has been carried out by IDIAP in cooperation with Swiss
TELECOMM-PTT. They collected 5000 speakers who answered several questions
(around 10), leading to spontaneous speech, and reading about 28 items from
a form supplied by IDIAP. This form contains several speech sequences,
including sentences from different sources (local newspapers, existing
corpora, law articles, etc.) to ensure a good phonetic coverage,
application words from a defined list of command words, currency amounts,
quantities, credit card numbers, spelled words (mainly names), etc.=20
The database is divided into two subsets: the first one comprises 1,000
speakers and the second one 4,000 speakers (1,000 speakers are not
available). Each subset is divided into two subsets: the phonetically rich
sentences and the application-oriented data.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 9600 ECU for research use: 16000 ECU
for commercial use: 12000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0030/02 Swiss-French polyphone database - 4000 speakers
See ELRA-S0030/1 for description.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 12000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 30000 ECU for commercial use: 38000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0040 Danish SpeechDat(M) database - DB1
The Danish SpeechDat(M) database is the speech database collected within
the SpeechDat(M) project. It consists of polyphone-like data recorded by
1,523 speakers.
The speech files are stored as sequences of 8 bit 8 kHz A-law samples. Each
prompted utterance is stored within a separate file and the associated
label files are stored in SAM file format.
An ASCII file is attached and is listing information about each speaker:
speaker code, sex, age, region, prompt number.=20
The lexicon is presented in a TAB delimited ASCII file containing an
alphabetically ordered list of distinct lexical items occurring in the
database. Each entry contains a frequency count and corresponding
pronunciation information.

Example:
WORD FREQUENCY PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTIONS
=E5bnede 104 O b n @ D | O b n @ D @
adresseangivelse 97 a d R a s @ a n g i: u l s @

The complete Danish SpeechDat database consists of 5 CD-ROMs. The first
three CD-ROMs contain the application oriented sub-set. The last two
CD-ROMs contain the phonetically rich sentences.
The included items are:=20
=B7 5 application word phrases (semi spontaneous)=20
=B7 12 connected digit strings with 8 digits=20
=B7 24 natural numbers (3-4 digits)=20
=B7 27 application words=20
=B7 3 dates, D3 spontaneous (birthday)=20
=B7 3 spelled words=20
=B7 2 money amounts, M1 small, M2 large=20
=B7 City name (spontaneous)=20
=B7 3 yes/no questions (spontaneous)=20
=B7 22-25 sentences=20
=B7 T1 time phrase, T2 time of day (spontaneous)=20
There are 1,523 speakers in the SpeechDat database from 11 linguistic
regions of Denmark and five age groups (under 16, 16-30, 31-45, 46-60, over
60). 78% of them are between 16 and 60 years old.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 11000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0041 Danish SpeechDat(M) database - DB2
See ELRA-S0040 for description. DB2 is a sub-set of DB1; it contains only
the phonetically rich sentences items

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 6000 ECU for research use: 10000 ECU
for commercial use: 12000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0051 German SpeechDat(II) FDB 1000
The German SpeechDat(II) FDB 1000 consists of 988 calls over the German
fixed network, stored on 4 CD-ROMs in the final SpeechDat(II) database
exchange format. The speech databases made within the SpeechDat(II) project
were validated by SPEX, the Netherlands, to assess their compliance with
the SpeechDat format and content specifications.
The following items were recorded:
=B7 1 isolated digit (read or prompted)
=B7 1 sequence of 10 isolated digit
=B7 4 connected digits=20
=B7 4-6 digit number to identify the prompt sheet=20
=B7 ca. 10 digit telephone number (read)=20
=B7 14-16 digit credit card number (read, 150 different credit card numbers
were found)
=B7 6 digit PIN code (read)
=B7 1 natural number (read)
=B7 1 money amount (read)
=B7 3 spelled words (1 spontaneous name spelling, 2 read)
=B7 1 time of day (spontaneous)
=B7 1 time phrase (read)
=B7 1 date (spontaneous)
=B7 1 date (read)
=B7 1 relative date (read)
=B7 2 yes/no questions (spontaneous, not prompted)
=B7 3/6 common application words (read)
=09
All application words are recorded more than 80 times. These are:
=B7 1 application word phrase
=B7 9 phonetically rich sentences (read)
=B7 4 phonetically rich words (read)
=B7 5 directory assistance names (1 spontaneous name (e.g. forename), 1
spontaneous city name, 1 read city name (from a list of 500 most frequent),
1 read company/agency name (from a list of 500 most frequent), 1 read
proper name, fore- and surname (from list of 150 SDB names).

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 15000 ECU for research use: 25000 ECU
for commercial use: 18000 ECU for commercial use: 25000 ECU

Special offers:
=B7 For ELRA members who already purchased German SpeechDat(M):
>From 30 Jun to 31 Dec 1998: 11000 ECU
=B7 Purchase with German SpeechDat(M):
Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 20000 ECU for research use: 30000 ECU
for commercial use: 25000 ECU for commercial use: 35000 ECU
=B7 Purchase in the same calendar year as German SpeechDat(M):
Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 20000 ECU for research use: 30000 ECU
for commercial use: 25,000 ECU for commercial use: 35000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0052 FIXED0IT - Italian Fixed Network Speech (SpeechDat(M)) Corpus
DB1 Phonetically rich sentences & application oriented utterances
The Italian Fixed Network Speech Corpus version 1.0 was recorded within the
scope of the SpeechDat(M) project (LRE-63314), funded by the European
Commission. Recording was done by using a primary rate ISDN interface,
yielding 8 kHz, 8 bits per sample, A-law coded signal. The data files are
formatted according to the SAM European project. The speech data are
compressed with the GNU gzip program. All software needed to use the corpus
is provided on the CDs.
The corpus contains the speech of about 1000 speakers (about 500 male and
500 female) and was designed to support the creation of voice-driven
teleservices. The callers spoke at least 39 items, comprising:
=B7 isolated and connected digits,
=B7 natural numbers,
=B7 money amounts,
=B7 spelled words,
=B7 time and date phrases,
=B7 yes/no questions,
=B7 city names,
=B7 common application words,
=B7 application words in phrases,
=B7 phonetically rich sentences.
Most items are read, some are spontaneously spoken.
The recordings come with extensive and standardised documentation. All
speech is carefully transcribed at the orthographic level; in addition, a
number of clearly audible non-speech events are included in the
transcription. Moreover, age and regional background of the speakers are
provided. A pronunciation dictionary is added, containing all words that
occur in the corpus, with a corresponding SAMPA broad-class phonemic
transcription.
Validation and premastering of the CD-ROMs were performed by the Speech
Processing Expertise Centre (SPEX), Leidschendam, The Netherlands.

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 11000 ECU for research use: 20000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0053 FIXED0IT - Italian Fixed Network Speech (SpeechDat(M)) Corpus
DB2 Phonetically rich sentences sub-set
See ELRA-S0052 for description. DB2 is a sub-set of DB1; it contains only
the phonetically rich sentences items

Price for ELRA members: Price for non members
for research use: 8800 ECU for research use: 14000 ECU
for commercial use: 14000 ECU for commercial use: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0054 Chilean Spanish FDB-250
This speech database gathers Spanish data as spoken in Chile. All
participants are native speakers. The corpus consists of read speech,
including digits and application words for teleservices, recorded through
an ISDN card. The whole database consists of 6.45 hours of speech, with 24
utterances per speaker. There is a total of 250 speakers (68 male, 80
female, 102 untagged). Except for the 102 untagged speakers, the age class
is divided as follows: 15 speakers are less than 16 year old, 72 speakers
are between age 16 to 30, 44 speakers are between age 31 to 45, and 14
speakers are between age 46 to 60 (and 102 untagged).
The callers spoke 74 different items in total:
=B7 isolated digits,
=B7 yes/no,
=B7 common application words.
The data is provided with orthographic transliteration for all 6,000
utterances including 4 categories of non-speech acoustic events. A phonetic
lexicon with canonical transcription in SAMPA is also included.
The speech files are stored as sequences of 8 bits 8 kHz A-law samples.
Data are stored in a SAM file format.

Price for ELRA members: 5000 ECU
Price for non members: 7500 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0055 Russian SpeechDat-like FDB-1000
This speech database gathers Russian data. The corpus consists of read and
spontaneous speech, recorded through an ISDN card, and was validated and
accepted according to the SpeechDat(II) database exchange format. The whole
database consists of 72 hours of speech, with approx. 49 prompted
utterances per speaker. A total of 1000 speakers was recorded (500 male,
500 female). These are native speakers from 5 regions, mainly from Moscow
and St. Petersburg (803 speakers). The speakers age class is divided as
follows: 16 speakers are less than 16 year old, 340 speakers are between
age 16 to 30, 345 speakers are between age 31 to 45, 255 speakers are
between age 46 to 60, and 44 speakers are above age 60.
The callers spoke the following items:
=B7 isolated and connected digits,
=B7 natural numbers,
=B7 money amounts,
=B7 spelled words,
=B7 time and date phrases,
=B7 yes/no,
=B7 city names,
=B7 common application words,
=B7 application words in phrases,
=B7 phonetically rich sentences.
The data is provided with orthographic transliteration for all 48,812
utterances including 4 categories of non-speech acoustic events. A phonetic
lexicon with canonical pronunciation is also provided.
The speech files are stored as sequences of 8 bits 8 kHz A-law samples. The
data is stored in a SAM file format (4 CD-ROMs).

Price for ELRA members: 14000 ECU
Price for non members: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0056 Slovenian SpeechDat(II) FDB-1000
The Slovenian SpeechDat(II) FDB-1000 consists of read and spontaneous
speech, recorded through an ISDN card, and was validated and accepted
according to the SpeechDat(II) database exchange format. The corpus
includes about 1000 speakers (about 500 male and 500 female) who called
over the Slovenian fixed network. All are native speakers of Slovenian from
all dialect regions of Slovenia.
The callers spoke the following items:
=B7 isolated and connected digits,
=B7 natural numbers,
=B7 money amounts,
=B7 spelled words,
=B7 time and date phrases,
=B7 yes/no,
=B7 city names,
=B7 common application words,
=B7 application words in phrases,
=B7 phonetically rich sentences.
The speech files are stored as sequences of 8 bits 8 kHz A-law samples. The
data is stored in a SAM file format (CD-ROMs). A phonetic lexicon with
canonical transcriptions in SAMPA is also provided.

Price for ELRA members: 14000 ECU
Price for non members: 20000 ECU
____________________________________________

ELRA-S0057 Shanghai Mandarin FDB-1000
This acoustic database gathers Mandarin data, as spoken in Shanghai as a
first or second Chinese dialect/language. The corpus consists of read
speech, including digits and application words for teleservices, recorded
through an ISDN card. A total of 70 utterances was prompted by each
speaker. About 1000 speakers were recorded (500 male, 500 female).
The callers spoke the following items:
=B7 isolated digits,
=B7 yes/no,
=B7 city names,
=B7 common application words and phrases.
The data is provided with Chinese characters and English translation,
canonical Pinyin transcription including tone markers, and several
categories of non-speech events.
The speech files are stored as sequences of 8 bits 8 kHz A-law samples.
Signal and annotation files are stored separately.

Price for ELRA members: 10000 ECU
Price for non members: 15000 ECU

For further information, please contact :

ELRA/ELDA Tel : +33 01 43 13 33 33
55-57 rue Brillat-Savarin Fax : +33 01 43 13 33 30
F-75013 Paris, France E-mail : mapelli@elda.fr

or visit our Web site:

http://www.icp.grenet.fr/ELRA/home.html

--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:42:41 -0500 (EST)
From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu>
Subject: NEH Summer Teacher Seminars

>> From: "Arnold, Douglas" <DArnold@neh.gov>

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
1999 SUMMER SEMINARS AND INSTITUTES
FOR COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

Each summer the National Endowment for the Humanities supports study
opportunities for educators to strengthen humanities teaching and
scholarship in American colleges and universities.

Nature and society in Africa and the Americas, Roman Egypt, the philosophy
of experimental inference, Black film studies, nineteenth-century Spanish
realism, and the Cold War are a few of the topics that college and
university teachers will address this summer as participants in 23 seminars
and institutes offered by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

View the complete slate of summer study opportunities for college and
university teachers on the NEH home page:
http://www.neh.gov/html/awards/seminar2.html

Information and application forms for specific seminars and institutes are
available from their directors. Participant applications are due March 1,
1999.

For printed copies of the slate of seminars and institutes: 202/606-8463;
sem-inst@neh.gov.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humanist Discussion Group
Information at <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
=========================================================================