Whispering is a natural, unphonated, secondary aspect of speech communications for most people. However, it is the primary mechanism of communications for some speakers who have impaired voice production mechanisms, such as partial laryngectomees, as well as for those prescribed voice rest, which often follows surgery or damage to the larynx. Unlike most people, who choose when to whisper and when not to, these speakers may have little choice but to rely on whispers for much of their daily vocal interaction.Even though most speakers will whisper at times, and some speakers can only whisper, the majority of today's computational speech technology systems assume or require phonated speech. This article considers conversion of whispers into natural-sounding phonated speech as a noninvasive prosthetic aid for people with voice impairments who can only whisper. As a by-product, the technique is also useful for unimpaired speakers who choose to whisper.Speech reconstruction systems can be classified into those requiring training and those that do not. Among the latter, a recent parametric reconstruction framework is explored and then enhanced through a refined estimation of plausible pitch from weighted formant differences. The improved reconstruction framework, with proposed formant-derived artificial pitch modulation, is validated through subjective and objective comparison tests alongside state-of-the-art alternatives.

The evaluation of internal control is one component of the audit process. It establishes to what extent controls in a company's accounting system prevent, correct or detect system exposure to loss or misrepresentation. This information is used for determining what tests to subject accounting procedures to. Internal control evaluation is a complex process in terms of the judgments necessary and the lack of normative criteria for specifying these judgments. The main advantages to be gained from automating part of the evaluation process include reducing the variability in the quality of evaluation, and enabling the auditor to concentrate of more complex judgment areas. Our goal is to explore the feasibility of developing an intelligent audit assistant for internal control evaluation. This paper describes a computational model for internal control evaluation which uses a knowledge-based approach.