27 September: fyi -- postgraduate funding, the Netherlands
Index of September 2003 | Index of year: 2003 | Full index
The Department of Language & Speech of the University of Nijmegen is committed
to excellence in research and teaching in the field of Language and Speech
Technology. The Department has openings for
two PhD students,
in the framework of a national research program called 'Interactive Multimodal
Information eXtraction (IMIX)' that is funded by NWO, the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research.
In IMIX, the Dept. of Language & Speech will focus on novel architectures
and procedures for automatic speech recognition, inspired by the emerging
theory of episodic memory. This theory assumes that the mental lexicon
contains quite detailed acoustic traces of the speech one has heard, and
that these details are instrumental in recognizing new speech signals.
This is in contrast with the more conventional models, which depart from
the assumption that lexical representations consist of sequences of
abstract phonemic symbols.
In a project titled 'Next generatiOn template based Recognition for
Interactive man-machine Speech Communication (NORISC)', the research in
IMIX will focus on two issues in episodic models. Firstly, we will
investigate acoustic feature representations that are inherently suited to
represent the temporal dynamics and continuity that is imposed on speech
signals by the physical constraints of the speech production system.
Secondly, we will investigate how (demi-)syllabic units can be used to
represent the inherent dynamics and continuity in the signals, while at
the same time allowing for an efficient and effective dynamic programming
search.
Information about the IMIX Program can be accessed via
http://www.nwo.nl/IMIX (click on 'IMIX Programme Description' in the
rightmost frame). Information about the activities of the Dept. of
Language & Speech can be obtained through http://lands.let.kun.nl .
A more detailed job description is provided at the web-site of the
Department (click on 'jobs' on the home-page).
For more information about the job openings, candidates can contact
prof. dr. Lou Boves (l.boves@let.kun.nl; tel. +31 24 361 2902) or
dr. Johan de Veth (j.deveth@let.kun.nl; tel. +31 24 361 1668).
The PhD candidates will be offered a contract for 3.5 years, starting no
later than 1 January 2004. PhD students at the University of Nijmegen are
obliged to have their PhD thesis completed at the end of the contract.
Candidates should send a c.v. and a statement of purpose before October
1st, 2003 to
L.Boves@let.kun.nl
or via surface mail to
prof. dr. Lou Boves
Dept. of Language & Speech
P.O. Box 9103
6500 HD Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Index of September 2003 | Index of year: 2003 | Full index