Automatically assessing emotional valence in human speech has historically been a difficult task for machine learning algorithms. The subtle changes in the voice of the speaker that are indicative of positive or negative emotional states are often "overshadowed" by voice characteristics relating to emotional intensity or emotional activation. In this work we explore a representation learning approach that automatically derives discriminative representations of emotional speech. In particular, we investigate two machine learning strategies to improve classifier performance: (1) utilization of unlabeled data using a deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN), and (2) multitask learning. Within our extensive experiments we leverage a multitask annotated emotional corpus as well as a large unlabeled meeting corpus (around 100 hours). Our speaker-independent classification experiments show that in particular the use of unlabeled data in our investigations improves performance of the classifiers and both fully supervised baseline approaches are outperformed considerably. We improve the classification of emotional valence on a discrete 5-point scale to 43.88% and on a 3-point scale to 49.80%, which is competitive to state-of-the-art performance.

SYRACUSE, N.Y.--It was a nightmare scenario: As thousands of Syracuse University basketball fans poured into town on February 1, 2014 for a big match against arch rival Duke, a water main break flooded Armory Square, surrounding the city's iconic 24-second shot clock monument. Days before the game, there were 11 other water main breaks around the city. Mayor Stephanie Miner was desperate for help to get a handle on the problem; on average, water lines in the city were breaking 332 times a year, nearly once every day. But she couldn't get the state to help foot the bill for the onerous costs of updating the city's underground infrastructure. She even tried to shame state officials with a "Hunger Games"-style ad campaign that showed her wading in thigh-high water wielding a wrench.

From the printing press to the digital age, new technology has long had a tendency to be viewed as disruptive, and is often met with resistance in the workplace. This is also the case when new advancements shift or evolve how we work. Artificial Intelligence (AI), what many have deemed the cause of the "fourth industrial revolution," is no different. While humans aren't always inventing new things, one thing we're really good at is figuring out how to do things better, faster, and more efficiently. Thirty years ago, robots might have seemed limited to science fiction novels, but even today there are many industries that have seen the shift towards automation take hold.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. After seeing this video, I'm convinced that RoboCup 2017 in Nagoya will be the best robot competition in the history of the universe. NASA's humanoid robots are too big and expensive to spend their time doing human-robot interaction studies, so students at Rice University built NotBot to take their place: It's not at all surprising that a human in a robot suit is much more capable than an actual robot for many (if not most) applications.

What is Jeff Bezos "Day 1" philosophy? "The outside world can push you into Day 2 if you won't or can't embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you're probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind"--Jeff Bezos A recent Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Amazon Exhibit 99.1 statement [1] is really quite interesting. Also known as the 2016 Letter to Shareholders, Jeff Bezos sketched out a philosophy that he calls "Day 1" and "Day 2". This idea came about in the very early days of Amazon. He occupied a building called "Day 1", named as a reminder that the company should always be in "Day 1" mode.

When Walt Disney started building what would become Epcot, he envisioned the city of tomorrow. Orlando has taken that founding principle quite seriously. The city is launching an ambitious plan to embrace the future of autonomous vehicles -- in part by testing them at Disney World and Universal Studios. "We are trying to push the edge in terms of innovation and technology," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. "The advantages in Central Florida are our 66 million visitors. Trying to have people be aware of advances in technology -- Orlando is a very good place to have people learn about your product."

"Very little skill" is required to become a cyber criminal, according to a new report. Research from the National Crime Agency (NCA) claims that free "off-the-shelf" hacking tools, online tutorials and video guides are making it increasingly easy for young people become involved in cyber crime. The report also says that, while financial gain is a key incentive for some offenders, it isn't always key, with many instead motivated by a "sense of accomplishment" and building a reputation. The average age of the young offenders involved in the study was 17, and the NCA says they're "unlikely" to commit more traditional crimes, such as theft, fraud and sexual offences. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has revealed that he limits his children's exposure to technology. The world's richest person says his kids clamoured for mobile phones as young teenagers, but he and his wife Melinda ignored their complaints until they turned 14. Mr Gates, like many other parents, also imposes rules on gadget use in the house, and is constantly trying to figure out where to draw the line. Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard.

By the way, you can listen to a neuron fire here (what you're actually hearing is the electro-chemical firing of a neuron, converted to audio). Some electrodes want to take the relationship to the next level and will go for a technique called the patch clamp, whereby it'll get rid of its electrode tip, leaving just a tiny little tube called a glass pipette,21 and it'll actually directly assault a neuron by sucking a "patch" of its membrane into the tube, allowing for even finer measurements:39 A patch clamp also has the benefit that, unlike all the other methods we've discussed, because it's physically touching the neuron, it can not only record but stimulate the neuron,22 injecting current or holding voltage at a set level to do specific tests (other methods can stimulate neurons, but only entire groups together). Finally, electrodes can fully defile the neuron and actually penetrate through the membrane, which is called sharp electrode recording. If the tip is sharp enough, this won't destroy the cell--the membrane will actually seal around the electrode, making it very easy to stimulate the neuron or record the voltage difference between the inside and outside of the neuron. But this is a short-term technique--a punctured neuron won't survive long.

On paper alone you would never guess that I grew up poor and hungry. My most recent annual salary was over $700,000. I am a Truman National Security Fellow and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. My publisher has just released my latest book series on quantitative finance in worldwide distribution. None of it feels like enough though. I feel as though I am wired for a permanent state of flight or fight, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or the metaphorical week when I don't eat. I've chosen not to have children, partly because--despite any success--I still don't feel I have a safety net. I have a huge minimum checking account balance in mind before I would ever consider having children. If you knew me personally, you might get glimpses of stress, self-doubt, anxiety, and depression.