Automatic music feature extraction, classification and annotation. Music is a huge industry currently undergoing a major revolution. The industry is shifting from music-making to music retrieval and its incorporation into a range of products from TV, and film, to music streaming into locations and events, as well as MP3 players and all kinds of electronic devices. This research will support immediate retrieval of music that meets the current industry need, based not just on titles, composers and ....Automatic music feature extraction, classification and annotation. Music is a huge industry currently undergoing a major revolution. The industry is shifting from music-making to music retrieval and its incorporation into a range of products from TV, and film, to music streaming into locations and events, as well as MP3 players and all kinds of electronic devices. This research will support immediate retrieval of music that meets the current industry need, based not just on titles, composers and/or performers, but on the actual properties of the music itself. The knowledge and music processing techniques developed will give Australian music industry an advantage over other countries.Read moreRead less
Data sharing with strong privacy against inference attacks. This project aims to develop theories and techniques for strong protection of personal information in sharing large datasets such as national health data or census records. It intends to achieve this through developing new information theoretic methods for synthesising datasets with proven high fidelity and protection against re-identification and inference attacks, where attackers try to learn probability of sensitive data. The expecte ....Data sharing with strong privacy against inference attacks. This project aims to develop theories and techniques for strong protection of personal information in sharing large datasets such as national health data or census records. It intends to achieve this through developing new information theoretic methods for synthesising datasets with proven high fidelity and protection against re-identification and inference attacks, where attackers try to learn probability of sensitive data. The expected outcomes are algorithms for public and private sector data curators to dial up or down their data access arrangements based on privacy risks and fidelity demands linked with different data types and uses. This project intends to enable Australians to securely benefit from valuable data in decision making.Read moreRead less
Fundamentals of active sensor network for damage identification in engineering structures. The development of active sensor network techniques for Australia's vast civil and defence infrastructure will improve operational safety, reduce maintenance costs and extend the residual life of many of our engineered assets. The resulting cost-efficiencies will advantage Australian producers in competitive global markets; our companies will be well placed to produce and install active sensor network tech ....Fundamentals of active sensor network for damage identification in engineering structures. The development of active sensor network techniques for Australia's vast civil and defence infrastructure will improve operational safety, reduce maintenance costs and extend the residual life of many of our engineered assets. The resulting cost-efficiencies will advantage Australian producers in competitive global markets; our companies will be well placed to produce and install active sensor network techniques and to provide training in the associated asset management systems. Australian industry will have a unique opportunity to collaborate with the world-class research networks on emerging areas such as damage diagnosis, prognosis and control, and structural repair.Read moreRead less
High-performance computational data-mining techniques for feature detection in complex time series from large-scale, networked plasma experiments. Terabytes of data are gathered from large experimental facilities as complex time-series. Analysis of these data is daunting, especially when they involve high-dimensional spectral or image arrays. We will develop high-performance computational techniques for dimension reduction, efficient data-mining, and experimental control, using as an initial ta ....High-performance computational data-mining techniques for feature detection in complex time series from large-scale, networked plasma experiments. Terabytes of data are gathered from large experimental facilities as complex time-series. Analysis of these data is daunting, especially when they involve high-dimensional spectral or image arrays. We will develop high-performance computational techniques for dimension reduction, efficient data-mining, and experimental control, using as an initial target the H-1NF plasma fusion MNRF at the ANU and its >100 GB/year data stream. The techniques will immediately provide Australian researchers with unique tools for collaboration in international research to develop fusion as a low-emissions source of electricity, and will be applicable to complex time-series analysis in other areas of science, medicine, and defence.Read moreRead less
Beamforming with acoustic vector sensors for audio user interfaces. We aim to create new Audio User Interfaces (AUIs) for the automatic separation and annotation of audio from complex sound scenes using acoustic vector sensor beamforming technology. Specifically, we will develop: speech AUIs for noisy, multi-talker, reverberant environments; and sound transcription AUIs for the deaf. Ultimately, users will be able to walk into a room, hold conversations and leave with a searchable, automatically ....Beamforming with acoustic vector sensors for audio user interfaces. We aim to create new Audio User Interfaces (AUIs) for the automatic separation and annotation of audio from complex sound scenes using acoustic vector sensor beamforming technology. Specifically, we will develop: speech AUIs for noisy, multi-talker, reverberant environments; and sound transcription AUIs for the deaf. Ultimately, users will be able to walk into a room, hold conversations and leave with a searchable, automatically-generated transcript of the audio events, tagged with metadata. The application of these technologies will create new possibilities for recording audio in the music, radio, TV industries, and future home based audio communication systems.Read moreRead less
Automatic audio segmentation, classification, identification, search and retrieval. The research aims to develop generic tools for automated audio segmentation, classification, identification and search, with lowest possible computational complexity and highest accuracy and speed. The tools will be applicable to audio archive management, search of audio material over WWW and personal archives of music and audio-assisted video analysis. The industry will use the tools for automated broadcast ve ....Automatic audio segmentation, classification, identification, search and retrieval. The research aims to develop generic tools for automated audio segmentation, classification, identification and search, with lowest possible computational complexity and highest accuracy and speed. The tools will be applicable to audio archive management, search of audio material over WWW and personal archives of music and audio-assisted video analysis. The industry will use the tools for automated broadcast verification and identification for copyright surveillance and calculation of royalty payments, aiming to penetrate both Australian and overseas markets. The area of real-time audio scene analysis is in its infancy and the research aims to make significant contributions to this area.Read moreRead less
Resource-aware Signal Processing and Control Algorithms for Networked Sensor Systems. Networked sensing and control is an important technology for Australia's future. Applications range from monitoring wildlife habitats to safety management of large civil structures. This project will lead to sustainable engineering solutions for these applications and provide key fundamental performance limits. Beyond the creation of new theory and algorithms, the national and community benefits will include: ....Resource-aware Signal Processing and Control Algorithms for Networked Sensor Systems. Networked sensing and control is an important technology for Australia's future. Applications range from monitoring wildlife habitats to safety management of large civil structures. This project will lead to sustainable engineering solutions for these applications and provide key fundamental performance limits. Beyond the creation of new theory and algorithms, the national and community benefits will include: (i) enhancement of Australia's reputation for innovative Engineering research through quality publications and international collaborations; and (ii) improvement of the research and development capability in the ICT sector through rigorous training of postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows.Read moreRead less
Solve it or Ignore it? The Challenge of Alignment Distortion and Creating Next Generation Automatic Facial Expression Detection. The last two decades have seen an escalating interest in automating the coding of facial expressions. Despite this keen interest, the promise of computer vision systems to accurately code facial expressions in natural circumstances remains elusive. Our interdisciplinary team will research a new paradigm to account for facial alignment distortion directly rather than ai ....Solve it or Ignore it? The Challenge of Alignment Distortion and Creating Next Generation Automatic Facial Expression Detection. The last two decades have seen an escalating interest in automating the coding of facial expressions. Despite this keen interest, the promise of computer vision systems to accurately code facial expressions in natural circumstances remains elusive. Our interdisciplinary team will research a new paradigm to account for facial alignment distortion directly rather than aiming to achieve invariance to it. The project will also research new data agnostic feature compaction capabilities to enable scalable learning on the world’s largest and challenging expression dataset available to us through international collaboration. Tackling these two major open problems will make accurate coding of facial expressions in natural environments achievable.Read moreRead less
Energy efficient sensing, computing and communication. This research will study trade-offs in resource use: bandwidth, power, and computational capacity of systems of sensors such as cameras, radars, and distributed sensor networks based on a statistical mechanical theory of information processing, leading to practical algorithms to optimize resource use in the design of such systems.
Robust speech recognition in realistic hostile environments. Australia leads the world in the adoption of speech recognition technology but sadly lags in the development of the fundamental advances in the area. This research will help propel Australia to the forefront of new innovations in speech recognition technology and contributions to fundamental science. Our project will provide an excellent training ground for graduate students and researchers, with the real possibility of significant com ....Robust speech recognition in realistic hostile environments. Australia leads the world in the adoption of speech recognition technology but sadly lags in the development of the fundamental advances in the area. This research will help propel Australia to the forefront of new innovations in speech recognition technology and contributions to fundamental science. Our project will provide an excellent training ground for graduate students and researchers, with the real possibility of significant commercial benefit to the nation. The deployment of our system in the community will greatly enhance the defence and police forces ability for surveillance and security, and will provide new assistive aids to improve the quality of life and safety for the elderly and disabled.Read moreRead less