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The 15th Oriental COCOSDA Conference, the flag conference of Oriental COCOSDA (the International Committee for the Co-ordination and Standardization of Speech Databases and Assessment Techniques), was held at the University of Macau (UM) Library between 9 December and 12 December. Over 80 experts and scholars, including three distinguished keynote speakers from Portugal, the United States and mainland China, attended the conference.<\/p>\n
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The conference was co-hosted by UM and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and was co-sponsored by the Science and Technology Development Fund of Macao SAR, the Macau Government Tourist Office, the Macau Section of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and the Shun Hing Institute of Advanced Engineering.<\/p>\n
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Keynote speakers included Prof Isabel Trancoso from the Technical University of Lisbon, fellow of IEEE; Prof Mark Liberman, trustee professor of phonetics, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium, and faculty director of College Houses and Academic Services at the University of Pennsylvania; and Prof Aijun Li, professor and director of the phonetics Laboratory, Institute of linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n
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The Oriental COCOSDA aims to provide a platform for participants to exchange ideas, share information and discuss regional matters on creation, utilisation, and dissemination of spoken language corpora of oriental languages. The 2012 Oriental COCOSDA Conference in Macao hoped to help boost research and development in the field of speech technology as well as to stimulate interest in speech technology in East and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>UM Vice Rector (Research) Prof Rui Martins, professors Pak Chung Ching and Tan Lee from CUHK, Dr Fai Wong from UM, Prof Dafydd Gibbon from Bielefeld University, Prof Satoshi Nakamura from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, as well as several members of the International COCOSDA Advisory Committee presided over the opening ceremony.\n
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