Dr Ekrem Malkoç is joining Oxford Wave Research as our Technical Sales Manager. He will be spearheading expansion of Oxford Wave Research’s forensic and commercial speech and audio processing products into new regions and markets.
Ekrem is a well-known expert in the field of forensic speech and audio processing, forensic image analysis as well as forensic linguistics. He has a PhD in forensic linguistics from Ankara University (Turkey), MSc and MA degrees in Criminalistics and European Criminology from the Ankara University and Katholieke University of Leuven (Belgium) respectively, and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Ekrem worked in Turkish Gendarmerie till 2015 as a Colonel after having served as the manager of two regional Gendarmerie Forensic Laboratories.
You can read more about him here https://oxfordwaveresearch.com/about-us/
Last week (14-17 July 2019) some of the OWR team had the pleasure of attending the annual IAFPA (International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics) conference which was hosted this year in Istanbul, Turkey.
It was a great opportunity for us to learn about the work of other members of the forensic phonetics and acoustics community from all around the world. One of the hot topics IAFPA this year was cross-language speaker comparison (Croatian-Serbian, Czech-Persian and French-English to name a few) We were delighted to see how much of this and other research from Switzerland and the Netherlands made use of the capabilities of our forensic automatic speaker recognition software VOCALISE.
The OWR team with the conference organiser Burcu Önder Gürpinar
We enjoyed every part of the conference but the highlight for us was undoubtedly our intern Linda’s poster winning the 2019 Best Student Poster award. As you can imagine, the team celebrated appropriately with Turkish beer.
Linda presenting speaker profiling and speaker recognition using x-vectors (winner of best student poster award).
We also showcased our advances in the use of Deep Neural Network (DNN)s using x-vectors in automatic speaker comparison and speaker profiling, presented by Dr. Finnian Kelly, our Principal Research Scientist.
Finnian presenting our x-vector paper
Abstracts of our papers:
1. From i-vectors to x-vectors – a generational change in speaker recognition illustrated on the NFI-FRIDA database, Finnian Kelly, Anil Alexander, Oscar Forth and David van der Vloed, 14-17 July 2019, International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) Conference, Istanbul, Turkey [download here]
2. The effect of background selection on the strength of evidence David van der Vloed, Finnian Kelly and Anil Alexander, 14-17 July 2019, International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) Conference, Istanbul, Turkey [download here]
3. One out of many: A sliding window approach to automatic speaker recognition with multi-speaker files Linda Gerlach, Finnian Kelly and Anil Alexander, 14-17 July 2019, International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) Conference, Istanbul, Turkey [download here]
4. More than just identity: speaker recognition and speaker profiling using the GBR-ENG database, Linda Gerlach, Finnian Kelly and Anil Alexander 14-17 July 2019, International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) Conference, Istanbul, Turkey (Winner of 2019 Best Student Paper award)[download here]
Special thanks to Burcu Önder Gürpinar for 4 fantastic days of forensics and we look forward to showing you what we have in store for IAFPA 2020.
Linda Gerlach, who is interning with us from the Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany, is working on a collaborative project between Oxford Wave Research (OWR) and the University of Cambridge. This work forms part of her MA thesis and seeks to better understand the relation of voice similarity ratings by humans and by an automatic approach. Results from this work could potentially help develop forensically sound methods and solutions for voice lineups (where a witness has to pick out the voice of a perpetrator from a lineup of foils).
Link to the voice similarity survey
This test takes about 15 mins and you will be presented with pairs of voice recordings by male speakers and asked to judge the similarity of each pair.
Oxford Wave Research are pleased to announce the promotion of Dr Finnian Kelly to Principal Research Scientist.
Dr Finnian Kelly, Principal Research Scientist
Since joining Oxford Wave Research in 2016 as a Senior Research Scientist, Finnian has made significant contributions to the development of our speaker recognition, speaker diarization and speech & audio processing systems. He has successfully led the OWR team in two NIST speaker recognition evaluations. Finnian was with the Sigmedia Research Group at Trinity College, Dublin where he completed his PhD in 2013 and is a Research Associate with the Center for Robust Speech Systems (CRSS) at The University of Texas at Dallas. Finnian has published in (and acts as a reviewer for) many top-tier international conferences and journals, and has been an invited speaker at research labs in Europe and the US. Finnian is a member of the research committee of the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA), and an affiliate member of the NIST OSAC Speaker Recognition subcommittee.
We are delighted that he will now be heading OWR’s research and leading us into new and exciting areas of work.
The team at Oxford Wave Research congratulate Finnian on his new role and look forward to working closely with him on future developments.
Oxford Wave Research are proud to be Platinum Sponsors of the 2019 AES International Conference on Audio Forensics.
Taking place in Porto, Portugal on June 18-20th 2019, this conference is dedicated to exploring advances in the field of Audio Forensics by providing a platform for research related to the forensic application of speech/signal processing, acoustical analyses, audio authentication, and the examination of methodologies and best practices.
We will be presenting our paper titled ‘Deep neural network based forensic automatic speaker recognition in VOCALISEusing x-vectors’ and will be giving a Platinum talk on ‘The who, the when and the what – challenges in the development of real-world solutions for forensic audio processing’.
This is the seventh AES conference devoted to the technical developments and practical approaches developing in the field of Audio Forensics and Oxford Wave Research will be demonstrating some of the latest (and coolest!) developments in speaker recognition and speech & audio processing.
The conference program will include paper presentations and discussions as well as Keynotes, Tutorials and Workshops on topics related to Forensic Audio.
Oxford Wave Research are delighted to be named partners of with the recently opened Centre for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (CFPA) at the University of Zurich. Opened on the 6th March 2019 the CFPA brings together research from a range of fields to address all areas of voice recognition in relation to forensic investigation.
Led by Prof. Volker Dellwo this centre will combine world-class research into forensic speaker recognition, voice disguise and voice line-ups with forensic services such as speaker profiling, speaker comparison, transcription, audio authentication and audio enhancement for both prosecution & defence.
As all great collaborations should, this one started with a few nice glasses in 2017 in Zurich.
Oxford Wave Research will be showing a whole host of exciting voice biometrics and audio processing products at the Home Office Security and Policing event from 5th-7th March at Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre – Stand P2
Our cutting-edge voice and audio-processing products include:
This year we will be be advance-previewing the latest deep neural network (DNN)-based generation of our voice biometric product Vocalise.
We are also pleased to be providing a presentation on ‘Rapid identification of illegal video content through a networked audio and video fingerprint database’, which focuses on our WHISKERS system developed in response to the Home Office ‘call to action’ in support of online sexual exploitation prevention.
To find out more about these, and other Oxford Wave Research systems please contact us on sales@oxfordwaveresearch.com
They will be providing a short presentation and further developing our engagement with the TAPAS project.
TAPAS: Training Network on Automatic Processing of PAthological Speech, is an EU funded project looking at, and finding solutions to, the challenges facing people living with debilitating speech pathologies in an era where speech based technologies play an ever increasing role in our day to day lives.
In August 2015, the Home Office challenged UK businesses and academia to come up with ways to improve the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of recovering and analysing data from digital devices seized from suspects under investigation. This was conducted through the SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) competition run by Innovate UK on behalf of the UK Home Office.
Oxford Wave Research participated in this highly competitive call and was one of the eleven businesses and universities selected for Phase 1 funding. OWR successfully completed Phase 1 and was one of the five companies from the Phase 1 participants that was further selected for Phase 2 of the competition.
The funding for this challenge helped us to enhance our existing MADCAT algorithms for extracting and comparing fingerprints in audio or video, to using GPU-acceleration to perform millions of comparisons in seconds and hundreds of millions in tens of minutes. We further developed this into a client and GPU-server based architecture capable of sharing and comparing audio fingerprint data for high speed cross-case comparisons.
Our R&D team attended the SBRI Digital Forensics Showcase Event in London on Friday, 3rd November 2017, to showcase MADCAT WHISKERS, our high-speed media fingerprint comparison solution that was developed as part of this challenge.
The showcase event provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how we used the Home Office funding and input to develop and improve a product which is now being used in certain UK law enforcement agencies with tremendous results.
To find out more about our software please contact us directly at info@oxfordwaveresearch.com
Oscar and Nikki are excited to be attending the kick off of the TAPAS project in Switzerland. OWR are privileged to be industry partners on this exciting new project which brings together some of the best academic and industry leaders in Europe.
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As all great collaborations should, this one started with a few nice glasses in 2017 in Zurich.
