Robust Automatic Speaker Diarisation of Audio Documents by Exploiting Prior Sources of Information. Speaker Diarisation, the task of determining who spoke when, is a technology fundamental in deriving intelligent information from audio and multimedia resources. The requirement for efficient and accurate Speaker Diarisation systems, portable across different domains is heightened by the explosive growth of audio and multimedia archives online and throughout the world. This research will provide t ....Robust Automatic Speaker Diarisation of Audio Documents by Exploiting Prior Sources of Information. Speaker Diarisation, the task of determining who spoke when, is a technology fundamental in deriving intelligent information from audio and multimedia resources. The requirement for efficient and accurate Speaker Diarisation systems, portable across different domains is heightened by the explosive growth of audio and multimedia archives online and throughout the world. This research will provide the foundation for a commercial service of automatic Speaker Diarisation to be developed, growing Australia's impact on the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. The outcome of this research will also assist in the tracking of terrorist and unlawful activity by enabling effective intelligence gathering from different audio sources.Read moreRead less
Progressive Transmission of Street Directory Assistance and Business Pages over 3G and 4G mobile networks. Multimedia on-demand and live services over 3G and 4G mobiles will be enhanced. New methods for low volume, high information transfer multimedia transactions will be developed. This will create new jobs in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector. Progressive transmission of street directory assistance and business pages information to mobile handsets will enable citize ....Progressive Transmission of Street Directory Assistance and Business Pages over 3G and 4G mobile networks. Multimedia on-demand and live services over 3G and 4G mobiles will be enhanced. New methods for low volume, high information transfer multimedia transactions will be developed. This will create new jobs in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector. Progressive transmission of street directory assistance and business pages information to mobile handsets will enable citizens to make efficient use of their time and improve productivity. The 3G and 4G cellular telephone network, extended with 'mobile' base stations and satellite links, are especially attractive to a large country like Australia. Interactive information retrieval will become more universal and not limited through wired Internet connections.
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Audio Visual Speech Recognition. Even though significant advances have been made in automatic speech recognition using acoustic information, the recognition accuracies are still poor in noisy and hostile environments such as in crowds, traffic, factory floors etc. In many of these applications visual information is or can easily be made available in addition to the audio. The aim of this project is to achieve an order of magnitude improvement in speech recognition accuracies in adverse environme ....Audio Visual Speech Recognition. Even though significant advances have been made in automatic speech recognition using acoustic information, the recognition accuracies are still poor in noisy and hostile environments such as in crowds, traffic, factory floors etc. In many of these applications visual information is or can easily be made available in addition to the audio. The aim of this project is to achieve an order of magnitude improvement in speech recognition accuracies in adverse environments by joint processing and modelling of the acoustic modality with visual information in the form of lip shapes and movements. The outcomes will be useful in human computer interaction in adverse environments as well as in the transcription and mining of multimedia data.
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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
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
Tooth-mic Devices for Monitoring the Efficacy of Home-based Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) Technology. Over 800,000 Australians suffer from Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA patients use twice the health resources compared to healthy people. They are 7 times more likely to cause traffic accidents; in NSW up to 43000 accidents/year are due to OSA. OSA is treatable & consequences such as strokes, diabetes & heart attacks are preventable. The standard OSA treatment is home-based Contin ....Tooth-mic Devices for Monitoring the Efficacy of Home-based Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) Technology. Over 800,000 Australians suffer from Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA patients use twice the health resources compared to healthy people. They are 7 times more likely to cause traffic accidents; in NSW up to 43000 accidents/year are due to OSA. OSA is treatable & consequences such as strokes, diabetes & heart attacks are preventable. The standard OSA treatment is home-based Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy. Unfortunately, no effective technique exists to measure the efficacy of the treatment. We propose enabling solutions to this problem via developing technology centered on breathing sound analysis. The project proposes joint work with a US-company facilitating access to advanced technology highly beneficial to Australia.Read moreRead less
Innovations in Clinical Education for Physiotherapy Students. Australia has workforce shortages and an ageing population. Physiotherapists are key players in promoting and maintaining good health through their leadership in physical activity and rehabilitation to retain Australians in the workforce and to ensure quality of life for our ageing population. There is a national shortage of physiotherapists. Increasing numbers of physiotherapists are being trained, requiring new models of clinical tr ....Innovations in Clinical Education for Physiotherapy Students. Australia has workforce shortages and an ageing population. Physiotherapists are key players in promoting and maintaining good health through their leadership in physical activity and rehabilitation to retain Australians in the workforce and to ensure quality of life for our ageing population. There is a national shortage of physiotherapists. Increasing numbers of physiotherapists are being trained, requiring new models of clinical training as there is no capacity in conventional training to cope with student numbers. This research will develop and evaluate new models of training incorporating standardised patients (actors) and simulators (mannequins) which increase education capacity. Models are transferable to other health professions.Read moreRead less
Automatic cartilage segmentation in magnetic resonance imaging. Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, affecting nearly 1.4 million Australians. This research aims at engineering new tools for use in Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems to enable automated analyses of the cartilage and bones in joint images. The goals of the work are to assist with improved diagnosis and treatment planning for both chronic disease, such as OA, and acute injuries, such as cartilage and ligament ....Automatic cartilage segmentation in magnetic resonance imaging. Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, affecting nearly 1.4 million Australians. This research aims at engineering new tools for use in Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems to enable automated analyses of the cartilage and bones in joint images. The goals of the work are to assist with improved diagnosis and treatment planning for both chronic disease, such as OA, and acute injuries, such as cartilage and ligament tears in sporting injuries and other traumas.
The software developed will be provided on the project’s partner (Siemens) platform and will therefore be available worldwide and have a consequently large impact on the field.
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Bilateral Cochlear Implants for Children: Does a Second Implant Improve Language, Psychosocial and Other Outcomes? Severe-profound congenital hearing loss engenders significant costs to society. In 2005, specialised education cost -- on average $25,000 per child, loss of productivity cost -- $6.7 billion, and social security benefits were paid to approximately 129,000 individuals who were unemployed due to hearing loss. If bilateral cochlear implantation results in improved language, social dev ....Bilateral Cochlear Implants for Children: Does a Second Implant Improve Language, Psychosocial and Other Outcomes? Severe-profound congenital hearing loss engenders significant costs to society. In 2005, specialised education cost -- on average $25,000 per child, loss of productivity cost -- $6.7 billion, and social security benefits were paid to approximately 129,000 individuals who were unemployed due to hearing loss. If bilateral cochlear implantation results in improved language, social development, and academic outcomes, the community benefits arising will be greatly improved quality of life for these individuals and significant savings to society. In partnership with Cochlear Ltd, this study will provide some of the first data worldwide comparing the effects of an additional implant on language, social and educational outcomes.Read moreRead less
Multi-Modal Dictionary Learning for Smart City Operation and Management. This Project aims to provide new digital asset management tools for city councils to improve city services by utilising new sensing and automated learning technologies for recognising, tracking and auditing of assets. Currently, there are no digital tools available to handle these services. This project proposes new multi-modal sensing and mapping of city asset techniques by building new multi-modal dictionary learning proc ....Multi-Modal Dictionary Learning for Smart City Operation and Management. This Project aims to provide new digital asset management tools for city councils to improve city services by utilising new sensing and automated learning technologies for recognising, tracking and auditing of assets. Currently, there are no digital tools available to handle these services. This project proposes new multi-modal sensing and mapping of city asset techniques by building new multi-modal dictionary learning procedures. The new framework will recognise different conditions of city assets in real-time to make decisions. Expected outcomes of this Project include integration and easy access of assets with unique digital identities to help city councils, governments, and navigation services for real-time asset monitoring.Read moreRead less