25 March: fyi -- speech, Belgium
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FPMS: One Job offer in Speech Processing
Circuit Theory and Signal Processing Lab - TCTS
http://tcts.fpms.ac.be
Faculté Polytechnique of Mons - FPMS
Mons, Belgium
TCTS is recruiting:
1 Post-doc or senior researcher
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The project:
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EXPRESSIVE is a collaborative project between the Faculté Polytechnique
of Mons (FPMS, Belgium), the Université catholique of Louvain (UCL,
Belgium), and four industrial partners (Alcatel, IT-Optics, Belga,
Acapela Group).
The objective is to investigate the possibility of improving a Speech
Synthesis System for French by adding expressiveness to a synthetic
voice (Expressive Speech Synthesis). The system will combine a Natural
Language Generation (NLG) system tailored for the task and a
Text-to-Speech (TTS) Synthesis engine capable of interpreting
"expressiveness instructions" provided by the NLG system and based on a
linguistic modeling.
Each research team will be involved in a complementary part of the
project: the VALIBEL team (UCL) will investigate prosody/phonology
issues, the CENTAL team (UCL) will develop the NLG system and the TCTS
team (FPMS) will work on the voice engine.
The industrial partners will be involved in the design of the overall
architecture and the conception of industrial applications based on the
results of the research.
This applied research project is funded by the Government of the Walloon
Region (DGTRE), the French speaking part of Belgium.
To strengthen the TCTS research team (FPMS) and collaborate on the
EXPRESSIVE project, we are recruiting a researcher in Speech Processing.
The researcher:
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The ideal candidate:
* has a PhD or is a Senior Researcher in Applied Science or Computer
science (or another close and relevant discipline);
* has good programming skills (good knowledge of C or C++ is required);
* is interested in Speech Processing and has a tangible experience or
knowledge of the field;
* speaks French or at least understands it;
* is a hard worker... has good team spirit!
The researcher will be mainly involved in research and development of a
new Digital Signal Processing module, able to convert prosodic rules
(designed by the VALIBEL team) into acoustic parameters. The idea is to
introduce expressiveness in a synthetic, neutral speech generated by a
non-uniform units-based (NUU) synthesizer.
He/she will work at the Faculté Polytechnique of Mons, in Mons, a nice
city, located 60 kilometers away from Brussels.
He/she will be part of the TCTS team, a dynamic research team of about
30 people, involved in various regional, national and international
research projects in Signal and Speech Processing.
He/she will benefit from the lab infrastructure and from a stimulating
environment.
He/she will work and stay in close contact with other researchers and
professors of the lab as well as with the other organisations involved
in the project.
=> Interested candidates are invited to send their C.V. and a statement
of research interests to the address below.
=> Applications received by April 30th 2008 will receive fullest
consideration; however, the search continues until the positions have
been filled.
Duration:
---------
- Up to 24 months
Starting date:
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- The project should start as soon as possible, maximum July 2008.
Websites:
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TCTS: http://tcts.fpms.ac.be
Cental: http://cental.fltr.ucl.ac.be
Valibel: http://valibel.fltr.ucl.ac.be
Additional information:
-----------------------
For additional information about the position please contact:
Prof. Joël Hancq
Director of TCTS
Faculté Polytechnique of Mons
Boulevard Dolez 31
B-7000 MONS
Belgium
joel.hancq@fpms.ac.be
Tel.: +32 65 37 47 30
Fax: +32 65 37 47 29
or
Dr Richard Beaufort
TTS Team Manager
Multitel ASBL
Rue Pierre et Marie Curie 2
B-7000 MONS
Belgium
richard.beaufort@multitel.be
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