TY - CHAP A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Saboo, Ashutosh ED - Ehrmann, Maud T1 - Evaluating Heuristics for Audio-Visual Translation T2 - Proceedings of the Conference of Computational Humanities Research, (CHR2021): November 17-19, 2021, Amsterdam, The Netherlands N2 - Dubbing, i.e., the lip-synchronous translation and revoicing of audio-visual media into a target language from a different source language, is essential for the full-fledged reception of foreign audio-visual media, be it movies, instructional videos or short social media clips. In this paper, we objectify influences on the ‘dubbability’ of translations, i.e., how well a translation would be synchronously revoiceable to the lips on screen. We explore the value of traditional heuristics used in evaluating the qualitative aspects, in particular matching bilabial consonants and the jaw opening while producing vowels, and control for quantity, i.e., that translations are similar to the source in length. We perform an ablation study using an adversarial neural classifier which is trained to differentiate “true” dubbing translations from machine translations. While we are able to confirm the value of matching lip closure in dubbing, we find that the opening angle of the jaw as determined by the realized vowel may be less relevant than frequently considered in audio-visual translation. KW - ablation study KW - audiovisual translation KW - dubbing KW - lip synchrony KW - machine translation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-228-7-2592 UR - http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2989/short_paper46.pdf SP - 171 EP - 180 PB - CEUR Workshops CY - Amsterdam, the Netherlands ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Geislinger, Robert A1 - Milde, Benjamin A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Biemann, Chris T1 - Live Subtitling for BigBlueButton with Open-Source Software T2 - INTERSPEECH 2021: (Show & Tell Contribution), 30 August – 3 September, 2021, Brno, Czechia N2 - We present an open source plugin for live subtitling in the popular open source video conferencing software BigBlueBut-ton. Our plugin decodes each speaker’s audio stream separately and in parallel, thereby obliviating the need for speaker di-arization and seamlessly handling overlapped talk. Any Kaldi-compatible nnet3 model can be used with our plugin and we demonstrate it using freely available TDNN-HMM-based ASR models for English and German. Our subtitles can be used as they are (e.g., in loud environments) or can form the basis for further NLP processes. Our tool can also simplify the collection of remotely recorded multi-party dialogue corpora. KW - automatic speech recognition KW - automatic subtitles KW - computer-supported collaborative work KW - meeting transcription KW - multi-party dialogue KW - videoconferencing KW - VoIP Y1 - 2021 UR - https://www.isca-speech.org/archive/pdfs/interspeech_2021/geislinger21_interspeech.pdf SP - 3319 EP - 3320 CY - Brno, Czechia ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Krüger, Norbert A1 - Fischer, Kerstin A1 - Manoonpong, Poramate A1 - Palinko, Oskar A1 - Bodenhagen, Leon A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Kjærum, Jens A1 - Rano, Ignacio A1 - Naik, Lakshadeep A1 - Juel, William Kristian A1 - Haarslev, Frederik A1 - Ignasov, Jevgeni A1 - Marchetti, Emanuela A1 - Langedijk, Rosalyn Melissa A1 - Kollakidou, Avgi A1 - Jeppesen, Kasper Camillus A1 - Heidtmann, Conny A1 - Dalgaard, Lars T1 - The SMOOTH-Robot: A Modular, Interactive Service Robot JF - Frontiers in Robotics and AI N2 - The SMOOTH-robot is a mobile robot that-due to its modularity-combines a relatively low price with the possibility to be used for a large variety of tasks in a wide range of domains. In this article, we demonstrate the potential of the SMOOTH-robot through three use cases, two of which were performed in elderly care homes. The robot is designed so that it can either make itself ready or be quickly changed by staff to perform different tasks. We carefully considered important design parameters such as the appearance, intended and unintended interactions with users, and the technical complexity, in order to achieve high acceptability and a sufficient degree of utilization of the robot. Three demonstrated use cases indicate that such a robot could contribute to an improved work environment, having the potential to free resources of care staff which could be allocated to actual care-giving tasks. Moreover, the SMOOTH-robot can be used in many other domains, as we will also exemplify in this article. KW - human–robot interaction KW - mobile robots KW - proactive control KW - service robots KW - socially aware navigation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.645639 VL - 8 PB - Frontiers ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Baumann, Timo ED - Weiss, Benjamin ED - Trouvain, Jürgen ED - Barkat-Defradas, Mélissa ED - Ohala, John J. T1 - Ranking and Comparing Speakers Based on Crowdsourced Pairwise Listener Ratings T2 - Voice attractiveness: Studies on Sexy, Likable, and Charismatic Speakers N2 - Speech quality and likability is a multi-faceted phenomenon consisting of a combination of perceptory features that cannot easily be computed nor weighed automatically. Yet, it is often easy to decide which of two voices one likes better, even though it would be hard to describe why, or to name the underlying basic perceptory features. Although likability is inherently subjective and individual preferences differ, generalizations are useful and there is often a broad intersubjective consensus about whether one speaker is more likeable than another. We present a methodology to efficiently create a likability ranking for many speakers from crowdsourced pairwise likability ratings which focuses manual rating effort on pairs of similar quality using an active sampling technique. Using this methodology, we collected pairwise likability ratings for many speakers (>220) from many raters (>160). We analyze listener preferences by correlating the resulting ranking with various acoustic and prosodic features. We also present a neural network that is able to model the complexity of listener preferences and the underlying temporal evolution of features. The recurrent neural network achieves remarkably high performance in estimating the pairwise decisions and an ablation study points toward the criticality of modeling temporal aspects in speech quality assessment. KW - Crowdsourcing KW - Found data KW - Likability ratings KW - Ranking KW - Sequence modelling KW - Speech quality Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-981-15-6626-4 SN - 978-981-15-6627-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6627-1_14 SP - 263 EP - 279 PB - Springer CY - Singapore ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Fischer, Kerstin A1 - Naik, Lakshadeep A1 - Langedijk, Rosalyn Melissa A1 - Baumann, Timo A1 - Jelínek, Matouš A1 - Palinko, Oskar ED - Bethel, Cindy ED - Paiva, Ana T1 - Initiating Human-Robot Interactions Using Incremental Speech Adaptation T2 - HRI '21 Companion, Companion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: March 8 - 11, 2021, Boulder CO, USA N2 - In this paper, we present a study in which a robot initiates interactions with people passing by in an in-the-wild scenario. The robot adapts the loudness of its voice dynamically to the distance of the respective person approached, thus indicating who it is talking to. It furthermore tracks people based on information on body orientation and eye gaze and adapts the text produced based on people's distance autonomously. Our study shows that the adaptation of the loudness of its voice is perceived as personalization by the participants and that the likelihood that they stop by and interact with the robot increases when the robot incrementally adjusts its behavior. KW - gaze KW - incrementalit KW - initiating interaction KW - personalization KW - voice Y1 - 2021 SN - 9781450382908 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3434074.3447205 SP - 421 EP - 425 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hu, Rongbo A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Wang, Suting A1 - Cheng, Wenting A1 - Liu, Xiaolong A1 - Güttler, Jörg A1 - Zhao, Charlie A1 - Lu, Yuan A1 - Bock, Thomas ED - Feng, Chen ED - Linner, Thomas ED - Brilakis, Ioannis T1 - Towards a Distributed Intelligent Home Based on Smart Furniture for China's Aging Population BT - A survey T2 - Proceedings of the 38th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC): 02.11.2021 - 04.11.2021, Dubai, United Arab Emirates N2 - Population aging is one of the major challenges facing the world. In particular, the advent of China's aging society caused by various factors will be a major threat to its future development. Therefore, serious measures need to be taken to achieve its demographic sustainability. Smart furniture can be considered as a novel subcategory of gerontechnology. One of the main outcomes of the EU-funded REACH project was a variety of smart furniture named Personalized Intelligent Interior Units (PI2Us) which served as the key component of a distributed intelligent home to promote the health and activity level of older adults. This outcome can potentially be a solution to mitigate the consequences caused by population aging. In order to understand the attitudes and opinions of Chinese older adults towards the relevant technologies, the authors conducted an opinion survey using the PI2Us as an example, which sampled more than 380 older adults in 26 out of 34 provincial-level administrative divisions of China. The survey showed that Chinese older adults in general have a highly positive attitude towards smart furniture and smart home technologies. Several other insights also can be revealed from the survey. Based on further analyses, the paper summarized why the elderly-oriented smart furniture and distributed intelligent home has the potential to thrive in China's market soon. Finally, a three-year project action plan for implementing localized solutions in cooperation with a large Chinese furniture manufacturer was presented. KW - Chinese older adults KW - Distributed intelligent home KW - Gerontechnology KW - Population aging KW - Smart furniture KW - Survey Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-952-69524-1-3 U6 - https://doi.org/10.22260/ISARC2021/0008 SP - 41 EP - 48 PB - International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC) ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pit, Sabrina A1 - Fisk, Malcolm A1 - Freihaut, Winona A1 - Akintunde, Fashola A1 - Aloko, Bamidele A1 - Berge, Britta A1 - Burmeister, Anne A1 - Ciacâru, Adriana A1 - Deller, Jürgen A1 - Dulmage, Rae A1 - Han, Tae Hwa A1 - Hao, Qiang A1 - Honeyman, Peter A1 - Huber, Peter C. A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Lundberg, Stefan A1 - Nwamara, Mofoluwaso A1 - Punpuing, Kamolpun A1 - Schramm, Jennifer A1 - Yamada, Hajime A1 - Yap, Jason C. H. T1 - COVID-19 and the ageing workforce: global perspectives on needs and solutions across 15 countries JF - International Journal for Equity in Health volume N2 - BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has a direct impact on the employment of older people. This adds to the challenge of ageism. The World Health Organization has started a worldwide campaign to combat ageism and has called for more research and evidence-based strategies that have the potential to be scaled up. This study specifically aims to identify solutions to combat the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the global ageing workforce. METHODS: We present 15 case studies from different countries and report on what those countries are doing or not doing to address the impact of COVID-19 on ageing workers. RESULTS: We provide examples of how COVID-19 influences older people's ability to work and stay healthy, and offer case studies of what governments, organizations or individuals can do to help ensure older people can obtain, maintain and, potentially, expand their current work. Case studies come from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Across the countries, the impact of COVID-19 on older workers is shown as widening inequalities. A particular challenge has arisen because of a large proportion of older people, often with limited education and working in the informal sector within rural areas, e.g. in Nigeria, Thailand and China. Remedies to the particular disadvantage experienced by older workers in the context of COVID are presented. These range from funding support to encouraging business continuity, innovative product and service developments, community action, new business models and localized, national and international actions. The case studies can be seen as frequently fitting within strategies that have been proven to work in reducing ageism within the workplace. They include policy and laws that have increased benefits to workers during lockdowns (most countries); educational activities such as coaching seniorpreneurship (e,g, Australia); intergenerational contact interventions such as younger Thai people who moved back to rural areas and sharing their digital knowledge with older people and where older people reciprocate by teaching the younger people farming knowledge. CONCLUSION: Global sharing of this knowledge among international, national and local governments and organizations, businesses, policy makers and health and human resources experts will further understanding of the issues that are faced by older workers. This will facilitate the replication or scalability of solutions as called for in the WHO call to combat ageism in 2021. We suggest that policy makers, business owners, researchers and international organisations build on the case studies by investing in evidence-based strategies to create inclusive workplaces. Such action will thus help to challenge ageism, reduce inequity, improve business continuity and add to the quality of life of older workers. KW - Aged KW - Aging KW - Communicable Disease Control KW - COVID-19 KW - Humans KW - Quality of Life KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - United States KW - Workforce Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01552-w VL - 20 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cheah, Chien Chern A1 - Bock, Thomas A1 - Cao, Jianfu A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Liu, Yun-Hui A1 - Yamashita, Atsushi A1 - Yang, Liman T1 - Guest Editorial Introduction to the Focused Section on Mechatronics and Automation for Constructions JF - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics N2 - Rapid advances in modern technologies have completely revolutionized many industries in recent years. It is anticipated that mechatronic and automation technologies would play an important role in transforming the construction industry to embrace for the fourth industrial revolution. However, construction automation problems bring up new research challenges that diverge from traditional methods. Unlike the factory environment, which is typically structured and predictable, construction sites are dynamic places where the working environment is unstructured and always changing. Due to lack of skilled labor, time and cost overruns, quality deficiencies, and the recent pandemics, mechatronic and automation technologies offer solutions for future safe, rapid, performative, prize worthy, and digitally protocolled construction projects. The coexistence of human workers, heavy vehicles, varying environmental conditions, and automated mechatronic systems also make safe human–machine interaction an important issue. Beyond expertise in a specific discipline, construction automation also requires multidisciplinary expertise to integrate with various fields, such as Internet of Things (IOT), robotics and its construction oriented subsystems, adaptive/robust control, machine vision, sensing technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and building/construction/process information modeling (BIM/CIM/PIM) for automated construction process management and design. The main aims of this focused section in the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMECH) are to document the current state of the art in mechatronics and automation for constructions, and to present new results in several emerging research areas. KW - automation KW - Inspection KW - Mechatronics KW - Robot sensing systems KW - Service robots Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2021.3127237 VL - 26 IS - 6 SP - 2819 EP - 2825 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hu, Rongbo A1 - Iturralde, Kepa A1 - Linner, Thomas A1 - Zhao, Charlie A1 - Pan, Wen A1 - Pracucci, Alessandro A1 - Bock, Thomas T1 - A Simple Framework for the Cost–Benefit Analysis of Single-Task Construction Robots Based on a Case Study of a Cable-Driven Facade Installation Robot JF - Buildings, Architecture: Integration of Art and Engineering N2 - Single-task construction robots (STCRs) have become a popular research topic for decades. However, there is still a gap in the ubiquitous application of STCRs for onsite construction due to various reasons, such as cost concerns. Therefore, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) can be used to measure the net economic benefit of the STCRs, compared to traditional construction methods, in order to boost the implementation of STCRs. This paper presents a simple and practical framework for the economic evaluation of STCRs and conducts a case study of a cable-driven facade installation robot to verify the method. The results show that the cable-driven robot for facade installation is worth investing in in the UK, as well as in the majority of G20 countries. Furthermore, other socioenvironmental implications of STCRs and the limitations of the study are also discussed. In conclusion, the proposed method is highly adaptable and reproducible. Therefore, researchers, engineers, investors, and policy makers can easily follow and customize this method to assess the economic advantages of any STCR systems, compared to traditional construction technologies. KW - cable-driven parallel robot KW - construction robot KW - cost–benefit analysis KW - curtain wall modules KW - economic evaluation KW - facade installation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11010008 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - GEN A1 - Singh, Max Diamond T1 - MDR implementation status & lessons learned BT - MDR-Audtis – Best Practive & Learning, Tuttlingen, 10.02.2021 Y1 - 2021 ER -