Head

Prof. Néstor Becerra Yoma, Ph.D.


Contact Information
Speech Processing and Transmission Laboratory
Department of Electrical Engineering/Universidad de Chile
Av. Tupper 2007, P.O.Box 412-3
Santiago-CHILE
Tel: +56-2-978 4205
nbecerra@ing.uchile.cl
http://www.die.uchile.cl/LPTV


Néstor Becerra Yoma was born in Santiago, Chile, on September 15th, 1964. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from UNICAMP (Campinas State University), Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh, UK, all in Electrical Engineering, in 1986, 1993, and 1998, respectively. In 1998 and 1999 he was a post-doctoral researcher at UNICAMP and a full-time professor at Mckenzie University in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Since 2000, he has been a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Chile, in Santiago, where he is currently lecturing on telecommunications and speech processing, and working on robust speech recognition/speaker verification, dialogue systems, and voice-over IP. At the University of Chile he has set up the Laboratory of Speech Processing and Transmission to study speech technology applications on the Internet and telephone lines. Professor Becerra Yoma is a member of the Institute of   Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the International Speech Communication Association.


Research interests

Speech recognition, Speaker verification, Speech coding, Robust speech processing, real time Internet protocols, QoS, and usability evaluation of interfaces.

Selected Papers

  • Yoma Becerra, N, Benavides, L., Wuth, J., Vivanco, H., 2013. Multicriteria-based computer-aided pronunciation quality evaluation of sentences. ETRI Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute Journal. 35(1), 89-99.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Garreton, C., Huenupán, F., Catalán, I., Wuth, J., 2013. On reducing harmonic and sampling distortion in vocal tract length normalization. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing. 21(1), 108-119.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Garretón, C., Molina, C., Huenupán, F., 2008. Unsupervised intra-speaker variability compensation based on Gestalt and model adaptation in speaker verification with telephone speech. Speech Communication. 50(11-12), 953-964.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Molina, C., 2006. Feature-dependent compensation of coders in speech recognition. Signal Processing. 86(1), 38-49.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Molina, C., Silva, J., Busso, C., 2006. Modeling, estimating, and compensating low-bit rate coding distortion in speech recognition. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing. 14(1), 246-255.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Carrasco, J., Molina, C., 2005. Bayes-based confidence measure in speech recognition. IEEE Signal Processing. 12(11), 745-748.
  • Yoma Becerra, N.; Busso, C; Soto, I., 2005. Packet-loss modelling in IP networks with state-duration constraints. IEEE Proceedings Communications. 152(1), 1-5.
  • Estévez, P. A., Yoma Becerra, N., Boric N., Ramirez, J. A., 2005. Genetic Programming-based Voice Activity Detection. Electronics Letters. 41(20), 1141-1143.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Hood, J, Busso, C., 2004. A real-time protocol for the Internet Based on the LMS algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. 6(1), 174-184.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Silva, J., Busso, C., Brito, I., 2003. On compensating additive noise and CS-CELP distortion in speech recognition using the stochastic weighted viterbi algorithm. IEEE Electronics Letters. 39(4), 409-411.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Sánchez, J. S., 2002. MAP speaker adaptation of state duration distributions for speech recognition. IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing. 10(7), 443-450.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., Villar, M., 2002. Speaker verification in noise using a stochastic version of the weighted Viterbi algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing. 10(3), 158-166.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., McInnes, F. R., Jack, M. A., 1998. Improving performance of spectral subtraction in speech recognition using a model for additive noise. IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing. 6(6), 579-582.
  • Yoma Becerra, N., McInnes, F. R., Jack, M. A., Stump, S. D., Ling, L. L., 2001. On including temporal constraints in Viterbi alignment for speech recognition in noise. IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing. 9(2), 179-182.

See all papers [pdf]

Research Staff

  • Professor Alejandro Bassi A., Ph.D.
  • Professor Nelson Baloian T., Ph.D.
  • Professor Hiram Vivanco T., M. A.
  • Professor Fernando Huenupán Q., Dr. Ing.
  • Professor Claudio Estévez, Ph.D.

Staff And Students

Research associates, Doctoral students and Postdoctoral researchers


Jorge Wuth S. – Engineer and research associate.

Jorge received his Electrical Engineering degree from the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, in 2007. Since 2007, he has been a research associate at the Speech Processing and Transmission Laboratory (LPTV) where he is currently carrying out his research on speech recognition and computer aided pronunciation training and language learning. Jorge is the co-author of 4 journal articles and 3 conference papers. His research interests include speech recognition and web-based human machine interfaces.


José Novoa I.- Doctoral student in Electrical Engineering.

José received his title of Civil Acoustic Engineer, was licensed in Engineering Sciences, and, most recently, his Master’s Degree in Acoustics and Vibrations from the Universidad Austral de Chile in 2012. Since then he has developed engineering projects in the areas of control and analysis of vibrations, acoustic design of architectural spaces, and control of environmental noise. At the start of 2014, he joined the Laboratory of Speech Processing and Transmission (LPTV) to follow his doctoral studies in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Chile. His research area is speaker verification and automatic speech recognition.

 

 

Josué Fredes S. – Master’s student and research assistant.

Josué joined the Speech Processing and Transmission Laboratory (LPTV) in March, 2014 as thesis student and research assistant. He received his Electrical Engineering degree from the Universidad de Chile in 2015. Josué is the first author of one conference paper, and co-author of one journal article and one conference paper. His interests include signal processing and telecommunication systems.

 

 


Rodrigo Mahu S. – Student, thesis writer, and research assistant.

 

Rodrigo is a student in electrical engineering at the University of Chile. He joined the Speech Processing and Transmission Laboratory (LPTV) in May, 2013, where he is currently carrying out research in signal processing for astronomy. He has co-authored a journal paper in that field. His interests include signal processing, astronomy, and automatic control.

 


Current Research Students

Current undergraduate students and research assistant

Juan Zamorano N. – Student and research assistant.

Juan is an electrical engineering student at the University of Chile. He joined the Speech Processing and Transmission Laboratory (LPTV), as a research assistant.

 


“Past Research Students”

Previous research students and engineers

  • Víctor Poblete R., PhD.
  • Carlos Molina S., PhD.
  • Claudio Garretón V., PhD.
  • Juan Pablo Arias A., PhD.
  • Leopoldo Benavides B., MSc.
  • Felipe Espic C.
  • Walid Hussein
  • M. Salman Khan
  • Sebastián Guerrero Díaz
  • Javier Yarmuch M.
  • Álvaro Herrada
  • Ignacio Catalán
  • Adolfo Ramírez
  • José Olivares
  • Matias Torres
  • Isaias Robles
  • Alvaro Jesam
  • Pablo Ravest
  • Cristian Lagos
  • Paul Aguayo
  • Mauricio Hormazábal
  • Sergio Maldonado
  • Paulo Seguel
  • Jorge Silva
  • Rafael Cordero
  • Daniel Figueroa
  • Camilo Fuente
  • Pablo Garrido
  • Carlos Busso
  • Rodrigo Henry
  • Mario Rivera
  • Cristian Sepúlveda
  • Ena Elizondo
  • Angela Cortés
  • Mauricio Castillo
  • Enrique López
  • Juan Hood
  • Ricardo Martínez
  • Miguel Villar
  • Mauricio Aracena

Beginnings

LPTV in its beginnings and present time.

 

LPTV in its beginnings.

 

LPTV present time…

 

 

LPTV present time.