<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Program dates:<\/strong> October 2023-April 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ICASSP 2024 (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> Audio Deep Packet Loss Concealment Challenge is intended to stimulate research in the area of\u202fAudio Packet Loss Concealment\u202f(PLC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n PLC is an important part of audio telecommunications technology and codec development, and methods for performing PLC using machine learning approaches are now becoming viable for practical use.\u202fPacket loss, either by missing packets or high packet jitter, is one of the top reasons for speech quality degradation in Voice over IP calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on the previous PLC Challenge at INTERSPEECH 2022, this challenge will feature an overall harder task and improved evaluation procedure. This iteration at ICASSP 2024 aims to address the challenges posed by long-gap packet losses and the ongoing transition to higher bandwidth (for the 2024 edition of the challenge, full-band \/ 48000Hz) audio in VoIP. The challenge retains the stringent realistic latency requirements from the previous iteration while presenting a more demanding dataset to reflect realistic and adverse network conditions. Subjective evaluation will be performed using the P.804 multi-dimensional audio quality assessment method, allowing for highly focused evaluation of how well models repair packet losses, while the WER will once again be used to test how well participants’ methods retain intelligibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The validation data for the 2024 edition of the challenge has now been released: https:\/\/aecchallengepublic.blob.core.windows.net\/plc2024\/plcchallenge24_val_v2.zip (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A tool to check and validate processing latency can be found here: https:\/\/aecchallengepublic.blob.core.windows.net\/plc2024\/latency_test_v2.zip (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The blind set has now been released, and can be found here: https:\/\/aecchallengepublic.blob.core.windows.net\/plc2024\/plc_challenge_2024_blind_release.zip (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n We recommend using the recently released new version of PLCMOS, which is part of the speechmos \u00b7 PyPI (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> package, to aid with development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To register for the challenge,\u202fplease register on the challenge CMT site (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, where you will be able to submit your entry. Additionally, please send an e-mail to plc_challenge@microsoft.com<\/a> with your team name the name and e-mail of the primary contact for your teams, so that we can keep you informed about the progress of the challenge. Registration data is captured and stored in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n To submit your entry, please:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Submission deadline<\/b>:<\/strong> December 7, 2023, 23:59 PM (anywhere on earth)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact us: <\/strong>For questions, please contact plc_challenge@microsoft.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Official rules<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sponsor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These Official Rules (\u201cRules\u201d) govern the operation of the Microsoft M365 Core<\/p>\n\n\n\n ICASSP 2024 Audio Deep Packet Loss Concealment Challenge (see overview) Event Contest (\u201cContest\u201d). Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA, 98052, USA, is the Contest sponsor (\u201cSponsor\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In these Rules, \u201cMicrosoft\u201d, \u201cwe\u201d, \u201cour\u201d, and \u201cus\u201d, refer to Sponsor and \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cyourself\u201d refers to a Contest participant, or the parent\/legal guardian of any Contest entrant who has not reached the age of majority to contractually obligate themselves in their legal place of residence. \u201cEvent\u201d refers to the ICASSP 2024 Audio Deep Packet Loss Concealment Challenge (see overview) PLC (see overview) event held in Incheon, Korea (the \u201cEvent\u201d). By entering you (your parent\/legal guardian if you are not the age of majority in your legal place of residence) agree to be bound by these Rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Entry period<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Contest will operate from October 2023 to December 7, 2023 (\u201cEntry Period\u201d). The Entry Period is divided into several periods as described in section How to Enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eligibility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Open to any registered Event attendee 18 years of age or older. If you are 18 years of age or older but have not reached the age of majority in your legal place of residence, then you must have consent of a parent\/legal guardian. Employees and directors of Microsoft Corporation and its subsidiaries, affiliates, advertising agencies, and Contest Parties are not eligible, nor are persons involved in the execution or administration of this promotion, or the family members of each above (parents, children, siblings, spouse\/domestic partners, or individuals residing in the same household). Void in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Region of Crimea, and where prohibited. For business\/tradeshow events: If you are attending the Event in your capacity as an employee, it is your sole responsibility to comply with your employer\u2019s gift policies. Microsoft will not be party to any disputes or actions related to this matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PLEASE NOTE: If you are a public sector employee (government and education), all awards will be awarded directly to your public sector organization and subject to receipt of a gift letter signed by your agency\/institution\u2019s ethics officer, attorney, or designated executive\/officer responsible for your organization\u2019s gifts\/ethics policy. Microsoft seeks to ensure that by offering items of value at no charge in promotional settings it does not create any violation of the letter or spirit of the entrant\u2019s applicable gifts and ethics rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to enter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Contest Objective is to promote collaborative research in real-time single-channel Speech Enhancement aimed to maximize the subjective (perceptual) quality of the enhanced speech. Placement will be awarded based on the speech quality of PLC models using the online subjective evaluation framework ITU-T P.804. Only models described papers submitted to ICASSP 2024 papers will be eligible fto be declared the winner. See (yet to upload the paper) for additional Contest details. You may participate as an individual or a team. If forming a team, you must designate a \u201cTeam Captain\u201d who will submit all entry materials on behalf of the team and act as the recipient of any awards that the team may win. Once you register as part of a Team, you cannot change Teams or alter your current team (either by adding or removing members) after the submission of your Entry. Limit one Entry per person and per team. You may not compete on multiple teams and you may not enter individually and on a team. We are not responsible for Entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for Entries that we receive but are not decipherable or not functional for any reason. Each Team is solely responsible for its own cooperation and teamwork. In no event will Microsoft officiate in any dispute regarding the conduct or cooperation of any Team or its members. The Contest will operate as follows: Registration \/ Development Period: October 2023 \u2013 December 7, 2023. To register, please register your team in the way described in the contest details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then i. develop a speech enhancement model that best meets the Contest Objective as described more fully below and ii. submit a paper to ICASSP 2024 which reports the computational complexity of the model in terms of the number of parameters and the time it takes to infer a frame on a particular CPU (preferably Intel Core i5 quad core machine clocked at 2.4 GHz). To develop your model, use any publicly available dataset for training data, including the Contest datasets provided for training and developing models. You may augment your datasets with the Contest dataset. You can augment your data in any way that improves the performance of your model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final evaluation will be conducted on a blind test set that is similar to the open sourced test set. On December 1st, 2023, the blind test dataset will be made available. You will have until 23:59 AoE on December 7th to test your model against this dataset and create a set of enhanced clips to submit for judging (your \u201cEntry\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rules of the challenge are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PLC must take less than the stride time T_s (in ms) to process a frame of size T (in ms) on an Intel Core i5 quad-core machine clocked at 2.4 GHz or equivalent processors. For example, T_s = T\/2 for 50% overlap between frames. The total algorithmic latency allowed including the frame size T, stride time T_s, and any look ahead must be \u2264 20ms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PLC can be a deep model, a traditional signal processing algorithm, or a mix of the two. There are no restrictions on the PLC aside from the run time and algorithmic delay described above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Submissions must follow instructions on overview page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winners will be picked based on a weighted MOS evaluated on the blind test set using ITU-T P.804 framework as well as word error rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blind test set will be made available to the participants on December 1st, 2023. Participants must send the results (audio clips) achieved by their developed models to the organizers. We will use the submitted clips to conduct ITU-T P.804 subjective evaluation and pick the winners based on the results. Participants are forbidden from using the blind test set to retrain or tune their models. They should not submit results using other PLC methods that they are not submitting to ICASSP 2024. Failing to adhere to these rules will lead to disqualification from the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participants should report the computational complexity of their model in terms of the number of parameters and the time it takes to infer a frame on a particular CPU (preferably Intel Core i5 quad-core machine clocked at 2.4 GHz). Among the submitted proposals differing by less than 0.1 MOS, the lower complexity model will be given a higher ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each invited team must submit an ICASSP paper that summarizes the research efforts and provide all the details to ensure reproducibility. Authors may choose to report additional objective\/subjective metrics in their paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Submitted papers will undergo the standard peer-review process of ICASSP 2024. The paper needs to be accepted to the conference for the participants to be eligible for the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The entry limit is one per person during the Entry Period. Any attempt by any you to obtain more than the stated number of entries by using multiple\/different accounts, identities, registrations, logins, or any other methods will void your entries and you may be disqualified. Use of any automated system to participate is prohibited. We are not responsible for excess, lost, late, or incomplete entries. If disputed, entries will be deemed submitted by the \u201cauthorized account holder\u201d of the email address, social media account, or other method used to enter. The \u201cauthorized account holder\u201d is the natural person assigned to an email address by an internet or online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eligible entry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To be eligible, an entry must meet the following content\/technical requirements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your Entry must be the method described in a paper accepted by ICASSP 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your entry must be your own original work; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your entry cannot have been selected as a winner in any other contest; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n You must have obtained any and all consents, approvals, or licenses required for you to submit your entry; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the extent that entry requires the submission of user-generated content such as software, photos, videos, music, artwork, essays, etc., entrants warrant that their entry is their original work, has not been copied from others without permission or apparent rights, and does not violate the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other rights of any other person or entity. You may include Microsoft trademarks, logos, and designs, for which Microsoft grants you a limited license to use for the sole purposes of submitting an entry into this Contest; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your entry may NOT contain, as determined by us in our sole and absolute discretion, any content that is obscene or offensive, violent, defamatory, disparaging or illegal, or that promotes alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco or a particular political agenda, or that communicates messages that may reflect negatively on the goodwill of Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your entry must NOT include enhanced clips using other PLC methods that you are not submitting to ICASSP 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use of entries<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are not claiming ownership rights to your Submission. However, by submitting an entry, you grant us an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide right and license to use, review, assess, test and otherwise analyze your entry and all its content in connection with this Contest and use your entry in any media whatsoever now known or later invented for any non-commercial or commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, the marketing, sale or promotion of Microsoft products or services, without further permission from you. You will not receive any compensation or credit for use of your entry, other than what is described in these Official Rules. By entering you acknowledge that the we may have developed or commissioned materials similar or identical to your entry and you waive any claims resulting from any similarities to your entry. Further you understand that we will not restrict work assignments of representatives who have had access to your entry and you agree that use of information in our representatives\u2019 unaided memories in the development or deployment of our products or services does not create liability for us under this agreement or copyright or trade secret law. Your entry may be posted on a public website. We are not responsible for any unauthorized use of your entry by visitors to this website. We are not obligated to use your entry for any purpose, even if it has been selected as a winning entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winner selection and notification<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pending confirmation of eligibility, potential award winners will be selected by Microsoft or their Agent or a qualified judging panel from among all eligible entries received based on the following judging criteria:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 99% \u2013 The subjective speech quality and word error rate evaluated on the blind test set using ITU-T P.804 framework and Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services. We will use the submitted clips with no alteration to conduct these evaluations and pick the winners based on the results. Among the submitted proposals differing by less than 0.1, the lower complexity model will be given higher ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1% \u2013 The Entry was described in an accepted ICASSP 2024 paper<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winners will be selected and notified within 7 days following the event. In the event of a tie between any eligible entries, an additional judge will break the tie based on the judging criteria described above. The decisions of the judges are final and binding. If public vote determines winners, it is prohibited for any person to obtain votes by any fraudulent or inappropriate means, including offering awards or other inducements in exchange for votes, automated programs or fraudulent ID\u2019s. Microsoft will void any questionable votes. Winners will be notified via the contact information provided during entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Odds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The odds of winning are based on the number and quality of eligible entries received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n General conditions and release of liability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To the extent allowed by law, by entering you agree to release and hold harmless Microsoft and its respective parents, partners, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss, or damage of any kind arising in connection with this Contest or any awards won. All local laws apply. The decisions of Microsoft are final and binding. We reserve the right to cancel, change, or suspend this Contest for any reason, including cheating, technology failure, catastrophe, war, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that affects the integrity of this Contest, whether human or mechanical. If the integrity of the Contest cannot be restored, we may select winners from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Contest. If you attempt or we have strong reason to believe that you have compromised the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Contest by cheating, hacking, creating a bot or other automated program, or by committing fraud in any way, we may seek damages from you to the full extent of the law and you may be banned from participation in future Microsoft promotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Governing law<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This Contest will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts of the State of Washington for any disputes arising out of this Contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winners list<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Send an email to plc_challenge@microsoft.com with the subject line “ICASSP 2024 PLC winners\u201d to receive a list of winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At Microsoft, we are committed to protecting your privacy. Microsoft uses the information you provide on this form to notify you of important information about our products, upgrades and enhancements, and to send you information about other Microsoft products and services. Microsoft will not share the information you provide with third parties without your permission except where necessary to complete the services or transactions you have requested, or as required by law. Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. Your personal information is never shared outside the company without your permission, except under conditions explained above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you believe that Microsoft has not adhered to this statement, please contact Microsoft by sending an email to privrc@microsoft.com or postal mail to Microsoft Privacy Response Center, Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nData downloads<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Registration procedure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Submission instructions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Official rules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Program timeline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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7.<\/s> 11. Oct. 2023 (provisional) \u2013 Release of validation data<\/li>\n\n\n\nOrganizers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Related links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Other challenges<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/td> P.804 Scores<\/th> <\/td><\/tr> Place<\/th> System<\/th> Coloration<\/td> Noisiness<\/td> Discontinuity<\/td> Reverb<\/td> Signal<\/td> Overall<\/td> WAcc<\/td> Final Score<\/td><\/tr> <\/th> Raw (Clean)<\/th> 4.43<\/td> 4.17<\/td> 4.55<\/td> 4.40<\/td> 4.34<\/td> 4.01<\/td> 0.98<\/td> 0.87<\/td><\/tr> 1 (shared)<\/th> 1024K<\/th> 4.05<\/td> 4.26<\/strong><\/td> 3.90<\/strong><\/td> 4.21<\/strong><\/td> 3.78<\/strong><\/td> 3.49<\/strong><\/td> 0.81<\/td> 0.72<\/td><\/tr> 1 (shared)<\/th> NWPU & ByteAudio<\/th> 4.11<\/strong><\/td> 4.03<\/td> 3.82<\/td> 4.14<\/td> 3.73<\/td> 3.44<\/td> 0.84<\/strong><\/td> 0.72<\/td><\/tr> 3<\/th> SpeechGroupIoA<\/th> 4.05<\/td> 4.23<\/td> 3.67<\/td> 4.15<\/td> 3.64<\/td> 3.37<\/td> 0.81<\/td> 0.69<\/td><\/tr> 4<\/th> HWYW<\/th> 3.99<\/td> 4.14<\/td> 3.49<\/td> 4.09<\/td> 3.49<\/td> 3.21<\/td> 0.81<\/td> 0.66<\/td><\/tr> 5<\/th> LEIBUS<\/th> 3.74<\/td> 3.82<\/td> 2.94<\/td> 3.87<\/td> 2.98<\/td> 2.75<\/td> 0.84<\/td> 0.59<\/td><\/tr> 6<\/th> Regenerate<\/th> 3.53<\/td> 3.42<\/td> 2.90<\/td> 3.64<\/td> 2.83<\/td> 2.56<\/td> 0.83<\/td> 0.57<\/td><\/tr> <\/th> Raw (Lossy)<\/th> 3.60<\/td> 3.67<\/td> 2.47<\/td> 3.72<\/td> 2.58<\/td> 2.37<\/td> 0.83<\/td> 0.51<\/td><\/tr> 7<\/th> CQUPT_ISARL<\/th> 2.93<\/td> 3.19<\/td> 2.65<\/td> 3.13<\/td> 2.34<\/td> 2.11<\/td> 0.81<\/td> 0.50<\/td><\/tr> 8<\/th> NJUAcstcs<\/th> 2.92<\/td> 3.18<\/td> 2.68<\/td> 3.15<\/td> 2.39<\/td> 2.17<\/td> 0.64<\/td> 0.45<\/td><\/tr> (DNF)<\/th> Enchanto<\/th> 3.73<\/td> 3.59<\/td> 3.36<\/td> 3.85<\/td> 3.21<\/td> 2.91<\/td> 0.82<\/td> 0.63<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"msr-opportunity-type":[187426],"msr-region":[256048],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-program-audience":[],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"class_list":["post-966297","msr-academic-program","type-msr-academic-program","status-publish","hentry","msr-opportunity-type-challenges","msr-region-global","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_description":"","msr_social_media":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Ross Cutler","user_id":40660,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"rcutler"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Lorenz Diener","user_id":40991,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"lorenzdiener"}],"tab-content":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-academic-program\/966297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-academic-program"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-academic-program"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-academic-program\/966297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1099161,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-academic-program\/966297\/revisions\/1099161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-opportunity-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-opportunity-type?post=966297"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=966297"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=966297"},{"taxonomy":"msr-program-audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-program-audience?post=966297"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=966297"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=966297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}