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Recognizing children’s speech on automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems developed using adults’ speech is a very challenging task. As reported by several earlier works, a severely degraded recognition performance is observed in such ASR tasks. This is mainly due to the gross mismatch in the acoustic and linguistic attributes between those two groups of speakers. One among the various identified sources of mismatch is that the vocal organs of the adult and child speakers are of significantly different dimensions. Feature-space normalization techniques are noted to effectively address the ill-effects arising from those differences. Two most commonly used approaches are the vocal-tract length normalization and the feature-space maximum-likelihood linear regression. Another important mismatch factor is the large variation in the average pitch values across the adult and child speakers. Addressing the ill-effects introduced by the pitch differences is the primary focus of the presented study. In this regard, we have explored the feasibility of explicitly changing the pitch of the children’s speech so that observed pitch differences between the two groups of speaker are reduced. In general, speech data from children is high-pitched in comparison with that from the adults’. Consequently, in this study, the pitch of the adults’ speech used for training the ASR system is kept unchanged while that for the children’s test speech data is reduced. Significant improvement in the recognition performance is noted by this explicit reduction of pitch. To conserve the critical spectral information and to avoid introducing perceptual artifacts, we have exploited timescale modification techniques for explicit pitch mapping. Furthermore, we also presented two schemes to automatically determine the factor by which the pitch of the given test data should be varied. Automatically determining the compensation factor is critical since an ASR system is expected to be accessed by both adult and child speakers. The effectiveness of proposed techniques is evaluated on adult data trained ASR systems employing different acoustic modeling approaches, viz. Gaussian mixture modeling (GMM), subspace GMM and deep neural networks (DNN). The proposed techniques are found to be highly effective in all the explored modeling paradigms. To further study the effectiveness of the proposed approaches, another DNN-based ASR system is developed on a mix of speech data from adult as well as child speakers. The use of pitch reduction is observed to be effective even in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical exercise instruction sheets are difficult to understand. In general, considerable information is hidden in these types of instruction sheets, which also makes them difficult for machines to understand. Major missing information types include the source and destination location of a human movement. Here we present a Bayesian network to extract the implicit or missing information from typical exercise instruction sheets. We proposed two different kind of Bayesian networks which consists of three and four variables respectively. The network with three variable are designed to for single exercise instruction with single action or pose and the other one designed for single or multiple sentence with two actions or poses. The conditional probability table (CPT) is the backbone of the Bayesian network. At the start, the CPT is updated from our physical exercise instruction sheet corpus (PEISC). Keeping the Action and Bodypart fixed, we have developed our CPT using a unique approach, i.e., crowdsourcing, where we have developed a CPT update system using 13 different exercises consisting of 44 different exercise videos. Using this system based on the rating of a participant of the video the specific variable of that CPT is updated automatically in the Bayesian network. We also updated the Action variable, which consists of 14 different values (action verbs) using crowdsourcing with a human computation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to develop a methodology for sustainable drinking water management by assessing the existing state of the water supply system in the study area (Allahabad, India). An attempt is made to identify various problems and gaps in the existing system and evolve solutions for the present water supply problems in a GIS framework. Finally, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for sustainable drinking water management. Design/methodology/approach - The study was conducted in four stages. The first stage involved collection of data and background information through various primary and secondary sources including reports and publications of various organizations. This was followed by discussions with various officials of Uttar Pradesh (UP) Jal Nigam (Water Corporation), Jal Sansthan (Water Board), State Ground Water Board, Central Ground Water Board and Municipal Corporation of the city. The second stage involved field studies in a few zones of the city. The third stage involved data input and analysis on a GIS platform, and the fourth stage includes the development of a solution of the present problems and proposing a conceptual framework for ensuring sustainable drinking water management for Allahabad City. Findings - ArcInfo 9.1 has been used as a tool for storing all types of relevant data for analysis and decision making. The various thematic maps include water supply zone map, water deficit localities map, land use map, location of tubewells, overhead tanks, zonal pumping station, ward boundaries, population map, water demand and supply map. Research limitations/implications - Applicability of a partnership between the public and the private sector has to be checked for proper institutional analysis in Allahabad City. Originality/value - The paper assesses the problems in the existing water supply system in Allahabad and proposes to give a GIS-based solution strategy for its sustainability. The proposed GIS-based conceptual framework would improve the current practice of drinking water management and would reduce the present problem of water crisis. The findings of the study would be useful for cities with similar problems in underdeveloped and developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to describe the present waste management scenario in the city of Allahabad listing the gaps in the waste management system. Design/methodology/approach - The research work was divided into three stages. The first stage was the collection of background data regarding municipal solid waste management systems such as waste generation, waste collection, treatment and disposal methods. The second stage involved data organization and data analysis. The third stage provided the conceptual framework that has been developed for MSW management, and finally a sustainable and suitable waste management option was provided for improving the MSW management in Allahabad. Findings - The existing solid waste management approach in the city is highly unprofessional and lacking in scientific methodologies. There is neither proper collection nor proper treatment and disposal of waste. Most of the waste is dumped in low lying areas leading to pollution of land, air and water due to leachate generation. Practical implications - There is need to develop a correct and detailed database of waste generation, collection and treatment system in various wards of Allahabad so that required manpower, equipments and other services can be estimated for designing a proper waste collection, treatment and disposal system. No site for engineered landfill has been identified as per the site selection criteria provided by Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. The suggestions in this paper have been made on the basis of data collected, actual observations and analysis. Originality/value - The work identifies the gap in the present solid waste management system of Allahabad City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses why the rice variety Komal Chaul is a suitable candidate for geographical indication (GI) in India. In GI, goods such as agricultural products, are identified as coming from or manufactured from a specific country, region or locality. Identification of a GI helps in protecting bio-cultural products such as the Komal Chaul. Komal Chaul is an agricultural product from Assam, in the northeastern part of India.

Solid waste management (SWM) has become a global issue and is of a major concern, especially in developing countries, due to various environmental problems, such as pollution of air, soil and water and generation of greenhouse gases from landfills. Municipal authorities generally fail in fulfilling their adequate services due to insufficient funds and ineffective legislation. The present work shows the current waste management practices of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) of India, including collection, transportation, treatment and disposal systems. It also highlights the possible improvement for sustainable solid waste management considering the technological, institutional and financial factors. A conceptual framework for upgrading the technological aspects is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]