Physiologically accurate audio processing in cochlear implants. This project proposes to use a physiologically motivated computational model of the cochlea, which along with newly developed cochlear-implant electrode technology will produce the next quantum improvement in speech intelligibility and quality of hearing for implant recipients.
Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the ....Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the same evaluative framework as used with DNA. In addition, application of the system during criminal investigations may lead to the refocussing of investigations on other suspects, or may help leverage guilty pleas, thus saving substantial time and money.Read moreRead less
Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt ex ....Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt existing adult speech recognition models for use with children and people with speaking difficulties. The intended outcomes will improve access to automatic speech recognition systems for Australians whose communication with speech-controlled environmental and educational devices is currently restricted.Read moreRead less
Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project repr ....Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project represents a truly innovative pathway forward in the development of cochlear implant sound coding that could substantially increase the speech perception of users, enabling these people to become and remain active and productive members of our community.Read moreRead less
New Approaches for Wireless Implantable Biomedical Devices. Wireless biomedical implants of the future will interface with biological systems to perform physiological tasks such as vision restoration, reanimation of paralyzed limbs, and chemical sensing. The potential benefit to society will come not only from alleviating human suffering and improving quality of life, but also by reducing the health care costs now directed to assist people with disabilities such as blindness, stroke and spinal-c ....New Approaches for Wireless Implantable Biomedical Devices. Wireless biomedical implants of the future will interface with biological systems to perform physiological tasks such as vision restoration, reanimation of paralyzed limbs, and chemical sensing. The potential benefit to society will come not only from alleviating human suffering and improving quality of life, but also by reducing the health care costs now directed to assist people with disabilities such as blindness, stroke and spinal-cord injury survivors. Using similar technologies, cochlear implants have already restored functional hearing to over 100,000 deaf patients around the world. The outcomes of the project can also be applied to a variety of other applications such environmental monitoring, security and identification systems. Read moreRead less
New laser-based approaches for remote sensing of water properties. New approaches for remote sensing of water properties such as temperature and salinity will be developed. Outcomes such as rapid vertical profiling of water temperature and salinity will contribute to environmental issues such as climate change and waterway health, while the ability to measure tissue temperature will contribute to human health.