Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

William H Rockenbeck

Milind V Mahajan

Max L Benson

Fileno A Alleva

Julian James Odell

Darren Arthur Shakib

Milind Madhukar Joshi

John Hal Howard

Ramesh Babu Pabbati

Patrick Y Ng

A pattern recognition system and method are provided. Aspects of the invention are particularly useful in combination with multi-state Hidden Markov Models. Pattern recognition is effected by processing Hidden Markov Model Blocks. This block-processing allows the processor to perform more operations upon data while such data is in cache memory. By so increasing cache locality, aspects of the invention provide significantly improved pattern recognition speed.

Block synchronous decoding

An unsupervised adaptation method and apparatus are provided that reduce the storage and time requirements associated with adaptation. Under the invention, utterances are converted into feature vectors, which are decoded to produce a transcript and alignment unit boundaries for the utterance. Individual alignment units and the feature vectors associated with those alignment units are then provided to an alignment function, which aligns the feature vectors with the states of each alignment unit. Because the alignment is performed within alignment unit boundaries, fewer feature vectors are used and the time for alignment is reduced. After alignment, the feature vector dimensions aligned to a state are added to dimension sums that are kept for that state. After all the states in an utterance have had their sums updated, the speech signal and the alignment units are deleted. Once sufficient frames of data have been received to perform adaptive training, the acoustic model is adapted.

Method and system for frame alignment and unsupervised adaptation of acoustic models

A messaging system user's mailbox is moved using a method in which the mailbox is flagged as being moved and a message arriving for the user during the move is delivered to a holding area to await re-delivery to the mailbox after the move is completed. A combination of non-volatile memory and volatile memory is used to ensure the message's delivery in the event of a power loss or other system failure.

Moving a messaging system mailbox

A method, computer program product, and system for creating and displaying a categorization table is provided. A categorization table into a set of data records is created and displayed by first sorting the data records according to data record fields, typically using an index. Next, a header table is created having a number of category columns that will hold values corresponding to a number of index columns. The combinations of values across each header row will be unique and the row will also have a count value indicating the number of data records having the unique combination of category values that can be used to quickly access the first data record in the sorted index. In this manner, all of the data records can be successively accessed knowing the count value and the location of the first data record. Additionally, header rows having no data records associated therewith are used to form the headings and subheadings of the categorization table. Finally, a processor will traverse the header table and cause the categorization table to be displayed on a display means. As part of the traversal, information contained in the header table is used to calculate a fractional position of a user's location with respect to the user's particular view of the categorization table. A plurality of user columns in the categorization table allow separate and distinct views by different users into the same set of data records and using the same header table.

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

William H Rockenbeck