Amateur radio sensing technique using a combination of energy detection and waveform classification

<p>A critical problem in spectrum sensing is to create a detection algorithm and test statistics. The existing approaches employ the energy level of each channel of interest. However, this feature cannot accurately characterize the actual application of public amateur radio. The transmitted signal is not continuous and may consist only of a carrier frequency without information. This paper proposes a novel energy detection and waveform feature classification (EDWC) algorithm to detect speech signals in public frequency bands based on energy detection and supervised machine learning. The energy level, descriptive statistics, and spectral measurements of radio channels are treated as feature vectors and classifiers to determine whether the signal is speech or noise. The algorithm is validated using actual frequency modulation (FM) broadcasting and public amateur signals. The proposed EDWC algorithm's performance is evaluated in terms of training duration, classification time, and receiver operating characteristic. The simulation and experimental outcomes show that the EDWC can distinguish and classify waveform characteristics for spectrum sensing purposes, particularly for the public amateur use case. The novel technical results can detect and classify public radio frequency signals as voice signals for speech communication or just noise, which is essential and can be applied in security aspects.</p>

Exploring Silent Speech Interfaces Based on Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Radar

Speech is our most natural and efficient form of communication and offers a strong potential to improve how we interact with machines. However, speech communication can sometimes be limited by environmental (e.g., ambient noise), contextual (e.g., need for privacy), or health conditions (e.g., laryngectomy), preventing the consideration of audible speech. In this regard, silent speech interfaces (SSI) have been proposed as an alternative, considering technologies that do not require the production of acoustic signals (e.g., electromyography and video). Unfortunately, despite their plentitude, many still face limitations regarding their everyday use, e.g., being intrusive, non-portable, or raising technical (e.g., lighting conditions for video) or privacy concerns. In line with this necessity, this article explores the consideration of contactless continuous-wave radar to assess its potential for SSI development. A corpus of 13 European Portuguese words was acquired for four speakers and three of them enrolled in a second acquisition session, three months later. Regarding the speaker-dependent models, trained and tested with data from each speaker while using 5-fold cross-validation, average accuracies of 84.50% and 88.00% were respectively obtained from Bagging (BAG) and Linear Regression (LR) classifiers, respectively. Additionally, recognition accuracies of 81.79% and 81.80% were also, respectively, achieved for the session and speaker-independent experiments, establishing promising grounds for further exploring this technology towards silent speech recognition.

The intercultural encounter as a communicative event subject to mediation

The aim of this article is to discuss the place and role of the intercultural encounter (IE) in communication and education, including in foreign language teaching. Firstly, I present the IE as a communicative event and define it using terms developed by ethnographers of speech (communication). Secondly, I discuss the concepts contained in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Companion Volume with New Descriptors (CEFR 2018) relating to the mediation of text, concepts, and communication, and present the original definition of mediation in intercultural contacts. That section emphasises that mediation does not only act as an intermediary facilitating the course of a communication event but also as an “understanding interview with oneself.” Next, I discuss theoretical concepts related to the IE, I describe it as a tool used in teaching and intercultural education, and I present a description of the IE by a student of the Teaching Polish as a Foreign/Second Language course at the University of Lodz. Finally, I analyse an example description of an IE and present preliminary conclusions on how to use IE descriptions in various educational contexts.

SUBJECTIVE COMPONENTS OF THE LINGUISTIC IMAGE OF A WOMAN POLITICIAN: THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL AND SPEECH ACTIVITY

Statement of the problem. This work is devoted to the study of the linguistic image of a Russian woman politician – a special type of public image that attracts the attention of both the mass addressee and the professional expert community. The very concept of “linguistic image” is used in many social and scientific practices, being of great interest for modern humanitarian knowledge – imageology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, advertising, public relations, etc. Within the field of linguistic image, as well as in the linguistic theory of linguistic personality, the aspect of the subjective component of public speech, the so-called “author in the text”, has always been highlighted as a separate aspect. This is interconnected not only with anthropocentrism as a universal scientific idea of ​​the 21st century, but also with the global process of mediatization of all spheres of human activity. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the subjective component of the linguistic image of a woman politician in the context of public social and speech activity. The methodology (materials and methods). The methodology of the analysis undertaken is based on the provisions and ideas of imageology, the theory of linguistic personality and linguistic semantics, in the context of which descriptive-analytical and comparative methods were used, as well as the method of semantic text analysis. The research material included the texts of public speeches and statements of 2016–2018, belonging to two representatives of modern Russian politics – Maria Zakharova and Natalia Poklonskaya. Research results. In the speeches of M. Zakharova and N. Poklonskaya, the description of social-speech communication corresponds to one language model and is presented in three aspects: 1) space (where?), 2) participants (who?), and 3) metascenarios of social-speech communication (what is happening?). In the texts of these women politicians, this semantic model is filled with its own content, which has general and specific elements that characterize their public images in different ways. Russia is described as a common communicative space for the activities of political subjects, despite the fact that for M. Zakharova the Ministry of Foreign Affairs turns out to be a specific medium of communication, and for N. Poklonskaya these are the State Duma, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Crimea. The common thing is that both speakers inscribe their own communicative activity in a threefold structure, where the main participants are a) the speaker himself, b) his associates and c) his opponents. In the contexts of M. Zakharova, the listed participants are embodied in roles: a) “Me” as “an intermediary” or “a moderator”, b) “We” as “diplomats”, as “teammates”, or a subject of the “conciliar” type (Russia, Moscow, diplomatic corps);in the contexts of M. Poklonskaya – a) “Me” as “a stateswoman” or “a prosecutor”, and also b) “We” as “prosecutors”, as “associates” and as “trustees”, respectively. As for the opponents, in both cases the set is practically the same: USA or the Ukrainian. The content of the described model is complemented by the so-called metascripts, which represent the social-speech situation in a new way and have a different functional purpose in every statement. Conclusion. The linguistic image of M. Zakharova is more objectified and restrained, in fact merging with the typical diplomatic image, while the image of N. Poklonskaya is more emotional and subjective, reinforced by the characteristic features of speech spontaneity and directness. At the same time, both images, framed by the modus of involvement and team goal-setting, organically fit into the space of the professional communication.

Who Speaks with My Synthesized Voice? Some Roles of Other-initiated Repair in Augmented Intaraction

As conversation analysis shows, all talk is highly collaborative, and meaning is created dialogically and sequentially, via the concerted actions of all the participants involved. In the case of people with communication impairments, the collaborative character of talk is even more manifest. A speaker with dysarthria, for example, may communicate through typing their messages to a text-to-speech communication app or device, using a communication (alphabet) board, or gazing at objects. This article focuses on one type of co-construction effort aimed at helping an augmented speaker to communicate, a process that can be called other-initiated repair. Although this practice is a common way of achieving understanding with people who have communication needs, in some cases repair initiation is used to do more than that. In this paper, I conduct conversation analysis of a video-recording of naturalistic interactions inside a Russian-speaking family involving a 10-year-old girl with dysarthria who communicates with her parents through an eyetracker-controlled computer interface. In this case, her parents use the structural position of repair initiation on the girl’s words not only to clarify the meaning of her message but to continue the preceding polemics over the mom’s birthday present. I argue that although this is just one instance of the use of other-repair in playful communication between family members, The potentiality of providing the type of guessing which aligns with the guesser’s interests is present in other repair sequences. This can be consequential for lives of people with communication needs when done in more official settings. Studying similar repair sequences can help better delineate 'good' scaffolding strategies in co-construction of speech of someone with communication needs.

A New Synchronization Method for Time-Delay Fractional Complex Chaotic System and Its Application

This paper proposes a class of time-delay fractional complex Lu¨ system and utilizes the adomian decomposition algorithm to study the dynamics of the system. Firstly, the time chaotic attractor, coexistence attractor and parameter space are studied. The bifurcation diagram and complexity are used to analyze the dynamic characteristics of the system. Secondly, the definition of modified fractional projective difference function synchronization (MFPDFS) is introduced. The corresponding synchronous controller is designed to realize the MFPDFS of the time-delay fractional complex Lu¨ system. Thirdly, based on the background of wireless speech communication system (WSCs), the MFPDFS controller is used to realize the secure speech transmission. Finally, the effectiveness of the controller is verified by numerical simulation. The signal-noise ratio (SNR) analysis of speech transmission is given. The performance of secure communication is verified by numerical simulation.

The Importance of Speech Communication in Achieving a Person’s Prestige Needs

The article deals with the correlation of speech communication with human needs, represented on the fourth level of "Maslow's pyramid". The role of speech communication in achieving such prestigious needs as respect, authority, fame, honor, power, etc. is revealed. Particular attention is paid to the expansion of the functionality of speech communication in connection with the specifics of the prestige needs of man and the change in his status as a conceptual person.

Do Communicants Transmit Information in Course of Speech Communication?

The article questions if human speech communication (SC) involves a transfer of information. The information functioning in speech communication is dwelled upon in the information and systemic activity approaches. The informational approach adequately explains only the direct method of information transfer, while the systemic activity approach is relevant for the sign-mediated speech communication typical for human interaction. The more heuristic thesis is that the perception of the chain of linguistic sign bodies produced in the intersubjective space only starts the construction of the perceived speech message content by the recipient. The completeness of the constructed speech message content depends entirely on the recipient, who has the optimal common consciousness with the speaker. The purpose of speech messages is not the actual construction of the content by the recipient, but the development of the message personal meaning. In human speech communication, the communicants do not transmit information, but use verbal signs bodies to actualize images of consciousness which are developed within a single ethnic culture and therefore are common for them. The incentive for the common consciousness development by the communicants is their participation in joint activities that ensure their earthly existence.