An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.

Intelligent Automated Assistant

During the last decade, CD-quality digital audio has essentially replaced analog audio. Emerging digital audio applications for network, wireless, and multimedia computing systems face a series of constraints such as reduced channel bandwidth, limited storage capacity, and low cost. These new applications have created a demand for high-quality digital audio delivery at low bit rates. In response to this need, considerable research has been devoted to the development of algorithms for perceptually transparent coding of high-fidelity (CD-quality) digital audio. As a result, many algorithms have been proposed, and several have now become international and/or commercial product standards. This paper reviews algorithms for perceptually transparent coding of CD-quality digital audio, including both research and standardization activities. This paper is organized as follows. First, psychoacoustic principles are described, with the MPEG psychoacoustic signal analysis model 1 discussed in some detail. Next, filter bank design issues and algorithms are addressed, with a particular emphasis placed on the modified discrete cosine transform, a perfect reconstruction cosine-modulated filter bank that has become of central importance in perceptual audio coding. Then, we review methodologies that achieve perceptually transparent coding of FM- and CD-quality audio signals, including algorithms that manipulate transform components, subband signal decompositions, sinusoidal signal components, and linear prediction parameters, as well as hybrid algorithms that make use of more than one signal model. These discussions concentrate on architectures and applications of those techniques that utilize psychoacoustic models to exploit efficiently masking characteristics of the human receiver. Several algorithms that have become international and/or commercial standards receive in-depth treatment, including the ISO/IEC MPEG family (-1, -2, -4), the Lucent Technologies PAC/EPAC/MPAC, the Dolby AC-2/AC-3, and the Sony ATRAC/SDDS algorithms. Then, we describe subjective evaluation methodologies in some detail, including the ITU-R BS.1116 recommendation on subjective measurements of small impairments. This paper concludes with a discussion of future research directions.

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Perceptual coding of digital audio

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) effectively mitigates intersymbol interference (ISI) caused by the delay spread of wireless channels. Therefore, it has been used in many wireless systems and adopted by various standards. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on OFDM for wireless communications. We address basic OFDM and related modulations, as well as techniques to improve the performance of OFDM for wireless communications, including channel estimation and signal detection, time- and frequency-offset estimation and correction, peak-to-average power ratio reduction, and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. We also describe the applications of OFDM in current systems and standards.

OFDM and Its Wireless Applications: A Survey

A virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user. Context helps to clarify the user's intent and to reduce the number of candidate interpretations of the user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input. Context can include any available information that is usable by the assistant to supplement explicit user input to constrain an information-processing problem and/or to personalize results. Context can be used to constrain solutions during various phases of processing, including, for example, speech recognition, natural language processing, task flow processing, and dialog generation.

Using context information to facilitate processing of commands in a virtual assistant

Year 2009 marks the completion of 50 years of the invention of CORDIC (coordinate rotation digital computer) by Jack E. Volder. The beauty of CORDIC lies in the fact that by simple shift-add operations, it can perform several computing tasks such as the calculation of trigonometric, hyperbolic and logarithmic functions, real and complex multiplications, division, square-root, solution of linear systems, eigenvalue estimation, singular value decomposition, QR factorization and many others. As a consequence, CORDIC has been utilized for applications in diverse areas such as signal and image processing, communication systems, robotics and 3-D graphics apart from general scientific and technical computation. In this article, we present a brief overview of the key developments in the CORDIC algorithms and architectures along with their potential and upcoming applications.

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50 Years of CORDIC: Algorithms, Architectures, and Applications

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) access schemes are becoming more prevalent among cellular and wireless broadband systems, accelerating the need for smaller, more energy efficient receiver solutions. Up to now the majority of OFDM texts have dealt with signal processing aspects. To address the current gap in OFDM integrated circuit (IC) instruction, Chiueh and Tsai have produced this timely text on baseband design. OFDM Baseband Receiver Design for Wireless Communications covers the gamut of OFDM technology, from theories and algorithms to architectures and circuits. Chiueh and Tsai give a concise yet comprehensive look at digital communications fundamentals before explaining modulation and signal processing algorithms in OFDM receivers. Moreover, the authors give detailed treatment of hardware issues -- from design methodology to physical IC implementation. Closes the gap between OFDM theory and implementation Enables the reader to transfer communication receiver concepts into hardware design wireless receivers with acceptable implementation loss achieve low-power designs Contains numerous figures to illustrate techniques Features concrete design examples of MC-CDMA systems and cognitive radio applications Presents theoretical discussions that focus on concepts rather than mathematical derivation Provides a much-needed single source of material from numerous papers Based on course materials for a class in digital communication IC design, this book is ideal for advanced undergraduate or post-graduate students from either VLSI design or signal processing backgrounds. New and experienced engineers in industry working on algorithms or hardware for wireless communications devices will also find this book to be a key reference.

OFDM Baseband Receiver Design for Wireless Communications

A low-latency, high-throughput tree architecture is proposed. This architecture implements both the full-search block-matching algorithm and the three-step hierarchical search algorithm in motion estimation. Owing to the simple and modular properties, the proposed architecture is suitable for VLSI implementation. Furthermore, it can be decomposed into subtrees to reduce hardware cost and pin count. The memory interleaving and the pipeline interleaving are also employed to enhance memory bandwidth and to use the pipeline 100%. Theoretical calculations and simulation results are presented to show the attractive performance. >

An efficient and simple VLSI tree architecture for motion estimation algorithms

The paper describes fully pipelined parallel architectures for the 3-step hierarchical search block-matching algorithm, a fast motion estimation algorithm for video coding. The advantage of this algorithm was completely utilized by use of intelligent data arrangement and memory configuration. Techniques for reducing interconnections and external memory accesses were also developed. Because of their low costs, high speeds, and low memory bandwidth requirements, the proposed 3-PE, 9-PE, and 27-PE architectures provide efficient solutions for real-time motion estimations required by video applications of various data rates, from low bit-rate video to HDTV systems. >

Parallel architectures for 3-step hierarchical search block-matching algorithm

A new hardware-oriented algorithm called the one-dimensional full search (1DFS) is presented for block-matching motion estimation in video compression. The simulation for this algorithm follows H.261 and MPEG international standards. In MPEG simulation, structures with 1-, 2- and 3-frame interpolation are compared. The performance of 1DFS is superior to that of other fast search algorithms. And it has more regular data flow, data reuse and less control overhead. It is an alternative for 2D full search block matching and achieves a good compromise between computational complexity and performance. With competent performance and reasonable computation complexity, the proposed method is more suitable for real-time hardware realization of a VLSI motion estimator for video applications. >

One-dimensional full search motion estimation algorithm for video coding

In this brief, we present a digit-reconfigurable finite-impulse response (FIR) filter architecture with a very fine granularity. It provides a flexible yet compact and low-power solution to FIR filters with a wide range of precision and tap length. Based on the proposed architecture, an 8-digit reconfigurable FIR filter chip is implemented in a single-poly quadruple-metal 0.35-mum CMOS technology. Measurement results show that the fabricated chip operates up to 86 MHz when the filter draws 16.5 mW of power from a 2.5-V power supply

Tzi-Dar Chiueh

Papers

OFDM Baseband Receiver Design for Wireless Communications

An efficient and simple VLSI tree architecture for motion estimation algorithms

Parallel architectures for 3-step hierarchical search block-matching algorithm

One-dimensional full search motion estimation algorithm for video coding

A Low-Power Digit-Based Reconfigurable FIR Filter