1. Phil Green, Sheffield
2. Sarah Simpson, Sheffield
3. Jana Eggink, Sheffield
4. Andrew Morris, IDIAP
5. Paavo Alku, HUT
6. Kalle Palomaki, Sheffield
7. Jens Blauert, Bochum
8. Jonas Braasch, Bochum
9. Emmanuel Tessier, ICP Grenoble
10. Juan Mari, Daimler-Chrysler
11. Jordan Cohen, Non-Executive Director
12. John Mourjopoulos, Patras
13. Joerg Buchholz, Patras

1. Georg Meyer, Keele
2. Udo Haiber, Daimler-Chrysler

COORDINATOR's INTRODUCTION / AGENDA

Phil Green asks for copies of slides of the presentations to be mailed to SPHEAR site.

Phil Green presents meeting's agenda.

COORDINATOR's REPORT

• Phil Green informs that 3 PhDs have been completed within SPHEAR project (Astrid Hagen, Herve Glotin, Lauren Varin, Emmanuel Tessier)
• Phil Green informs that cost statements have to be submitted from everybody in order to check overspending and budget distribution. Notes that up to now yearly reports / cost statements have been received from Sheffield, Bochum, Keele and Patras.

1.Presenter: Phil Green

Title: Temporal Integration as a Consequence of Multisource Decoding?

Authors: Jon Barker, Martin Cooke, Dan Ellis

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert, Jordan Cohen, Kaale Palomaki, Juan Mari.

2.Presenter: Andrew Morris

Title: Microphone Arrays for Missing Data Mask Estimation: Two Ears is Enough?

Authors: Iain McCowan , Andrew Morris

Discussion and questions: 

Kaale Palomaki (room acousticproperties)

Jens Blauert (significance of 2 microphones and binaural processing)

Presenter: Andrew Morris

Title: Low Cost Duration Modelling

Authors: Andrew Morris, Simon Payne

Discussion and questions from Juan Mari (mean duration estimation for states, significance of minimum duration)

COFFEE BREAK

3.Presenter : Jana Eggink

Title: Automatic Transcription of Polyphonic Music?

Authors: Jana Eggink, Guy Brown

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert (state of the art / problems with octaves)

Jordan Cohen (applications and market for these techniques)

Phil Green (evaluation problems)

Juan Mari (need for birth / death algorithm)

Jonas Braasch (other research on instrument identification need for more specific approach)

Jens Blauert (relationship with other research / evaluation)

John Mourjopoulos (FFTresolution / pitch extraction)

Juan Mari (classifion problems / suggestions)

Andrew Morris (vibrato recognizer)

4.Presenter: Sarah Simpson

Title: Non - stationary Noise Estimation?

Author: Sarah Simpson

Discussion and questions fromJordan Cohen, Juan Mari and Jens Blauert (interpretation of Modulation frequency spectrum)

Jens Blauert (parametric estimation / representation of noise)

Emmanuel Tessier (competing speech performance)

Jens Blauert and/ Kaale Palomaki (details for rate filter bank)

Jens Blauert (significance of noise estimation)

LUNCHBREAK

5.Presenter: Juan Mari

Title: Results and current experiments at Daimler Chrysler in the framework of the Respite and Sphear?

Author: Juan Mari 

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert (significance / contribution of work)

Andrew Morris (hierarchy for presentation of results /latest results)

Jens Blauert (system evaluation)

6.Presenter: Kalle Palomaki 

Title: Missing Data Recognition in Reverberent conditions 

Authors: Kalle Palomaki Guy Brown

Discussion and questions Joerg Buchholz , John Mourjopoulos (dynamic range)

Jens Blauert (image model effects)

Jens Blauert (modulation spectrum for reverberation)

COFFEE BREAK

7. Presenter: Joerg Buchholz 

Title: A Computational Auditory Model based on Signal Dependent Compression?

Author: Joerg Buchholz

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert (significance of model?s parameters)

Jens Blauert (application to hearing impaired listeners / modeling auditory adaptation)

8.Presenter: Jonas Braasch

Title: Modeling human localization in multiple-source scenes?

Author: Jonas Braasch

Discussion and questions from Phil Green (scenarios for binaural artificial expert categorization)

Phil Green (relationship to other research)

Jens Blauert (significance and applications for such models)

9.Presenter: Emmanuel Tessier 

Title: Speech enhancement and segregation based on the localization cue for cocktail-party processing?

Authors: Emmanuel Tessier , Frederic Berthommier

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert, John Mourjopoulos(microphone placement / distance)

Jens Blauert (effect of reverberation)

Jens Blauert (relationship to other research work)

10.Presenter: Paavo Alku 

Title: Speech Research at Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing?

Author: Paavo Alku

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert (MEG and cerebral processing of 3D sounds)

Jens Blauert (access of brain with MEG equipment / work at Oldenburg)

Jens Blauert (significance of education in cognition / use for applications)

END OF DAY

Minutes for SATURDAY 20/4/2002

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR's REPORT

Jordan Cohen presented a report entitled 'Some feedback on the work in SPHEAR', containing the following sections:

SPHEAR project overview

Common themes within SPHEAR (Missing data, Human perception)

PhDs have been accomplished

Common focus with disparate projects

Cautionary points

TI Digit database not general

Aurora data has artificial noise (some artifacts)

Other databases are now available (Aurora 3, Speech.car, Move)

Information on recent developments

Telematics focus

Cell phone developments (Voice dialing, Command and Control, Messaging, Network solutions)

Wireless data-messaging market size (currently at $ 40 billion)

Developments in handsets with respect to processing power

Multimodal Interfaces (Why dictation has failed)

Research developments and funding in the USA

DARPA funding for speech research (SRI, ICSI, IBM, Cambridge). 

Discussion and questions from Jens Blauert (Relationship to MPEG), Phil Green (M4 project relationship to HOARSE).

Rich Transcription Project (new data)

The Communicator Project (realistic military environments, real-time translator, the phraselator).

SPINE database (speech in noise). 

Discussion and questions from Juan Mari and Jens Blauert (significance of Lombart effect).

COORDINATOR's REPORT ON FUTURE PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS

Phil Green presented a report and opened discussion on planning for SPHEAR.

Immediate actions:

• Athens meeting presentations must be send to Phil Green
• Year 4 reports & cost statements must be send to Phil Green
• Phil Green will produce a financial summary for the project before next meeting.

• Date of next meeting is set for September 2002 (joint SPHEAR meeting and  HOARSE kick-off). Jens Blauert proposes meeting in Bochum. (for 5^th/6^th/7^th/8^th of September 2002). Proposal accepted.

• Phil Green proposes the February 2003 SPHEAR wind-up meeting to be held at Helsinki, together with HOARSE meeting. Provisional dates are for 21th / 22^nd of February.

• A draft of the final SPHEAR report will be produced by Phil for the wind-up meeting, provided that everybody sends material during January.

Phil Green informs on new developments within HOARSE:

• HOARSE is an IHP programme (maths & info sciences network). Project officer is Ginus Ipema (Ginus.Ipema@cec.eu.int). A meeting between Phil Green and project officer was held in Brussels. IHP office is in Brussels and will handle all administration.

• Contract negotiations approved. Some comments from Ginus (difference to SPHEAR, common focus, IDIAP reduction, payment rates, etc).

• HOARSE starts in September 1^st.

• HOARSE rules (to be distributed by Phil).

·Set up a project web site. John Mourjopoulosand Jordan Cohen suggest to register with search engines. Search for webmaster: Phil / Jana will consider possibilities for Sheffield. Partners should generate links. Links from EAA and other sites.

·Invent a logo. Some ideas from Sarah and Jana and a 'horse-shoe' idea is chosen.

·Generate advertising material. Send emails to all acoustics lists. Juan: mailing lists to Universities. Each partner should email to colleagues. A list should be compiled by Andrew. Jens: problems for recruiting for non-English speaking partners.

·Advertise. Phil: need to create poster. 

A discussion follows on potential recruits.

END OF MEETING