A simple computer model is described that takes a novel approach to the problem of accounting for perceptual coherence among successive pure tones of changing frequency by using simple physiological principles that operate at a peripheral, rather than a central level. The model is able to reproduce a number of streaming phenomena found in the literature using the same parameter values. These are: (1) the build-up of streaming over time; (2) the temporal coherence and fission boundaries of human listeners; (3) the ambiguous region; and (4) the trill threshold. In addition, the principle of excitation integration used in the model can be used to account for auditory grouping on the basis of the Gestalt perceptual principles of closure, proximity, continuity, and good continuation, as well as the pulsation threshold. The examples of Gestalt auditory grouping accounted for by the excitation integration principle indicate that the predictive power of the model would be considerably enhanced by the addition of a cross-channel grouping mechanism that worked on the basis of common on sets and offsets, as more complex stimuli could then be processed by the model.

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Source coding, a central concept in information theory, is the study of encoding and decoding data. Depending on the topological structure of the sources, i.e. how the sources are connected with encoders, different rate distortion functions are used. In this thesis two different encoding schemes---distributed and decentralized---are discussed and compared with a benchmark (centralized) coding structure. Specifically, all structures for two and three sources are discussed and a special case for the multi-source (more than three sources) is calculated. This work gives a pathway to characterize the generalized multiterminal source coding systems by finding the difference in the rate distortion limits from the optimal centralized coding system. It is shown that in specific cases, some decentralized systems can achieve the Shannon lower bound in a high resolution regime. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The construction of a field emission ion source and its adaptation to a mass spectrometer is described. The problems involved and the advantages of such an ion source are discussed. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

This project deals with design and implementation of management and monitoring of static power source via ethernet. Description of individual objects and instalations which are located in static power source. Design and implementation of a system for access control of individual users.

Dans les applications d'écoute active, il est primordial de pouvoir interagir avec les sources individuelles présentes dans le mix, par exemple en changeant leur position spatiale. Dans cette thèse, nous avons proposé des techniques binaurales pour la localisation et la spatialisation, basées sur les différences interaurales en amplitude et en temps d'arrivée. Les techniques sont développées dans le plan temps-fréquence. Elles permettent de localiser et de projeter toute source dans l'espace environnant un auditeur. aussi nous avons mis au point des techniques de séparation binaurale de source basées sur le Maximum de vraisemblance et de masques spatiaux probabilistes. Enfin nous avons étendu les techniques binaurales à des techniques multi-diffusion utilisant un ensemble de haut-parleurs. Les techniques proposées sont éprouvées et comparées à des techniques de référence de la littérature. Pour des performances similaires aux techniques existantes, nos propositions ont un avantage significatif en terme de complexité qui les rendent appropriées aux applications temps-réel. / In active listening applications, it is important to be able to interact with individual sources present in the mix, for example by changing their spatial position. In this thesis, we proposed techniques for binaural localization and spatialization, based on interaural differences in amplitude and in time of arrival. The techniques are developed in the time-frequency plane. They can locate and project sources in the space surrounding a listener. We also developed binaural source separation methods based on the Maximum Likelihood and on spatial probabilistic masks. Finally, we extended binaural spatialization techniques to multi-diffusion techniques which use a set of speakers for diffusion. The proposed techniques are tested and compared to referenced, well-known techniques. For similar performance with the existing ones, our proposed techniques highlight complexity advantages and are suitable for real-time applications.

L'objectif de cette thèse est la recherche des neutrinos cosmiques de haute énergie émis par des sources ponctuelles avec le télescope à neutrino ANTARES. La détection des neutrinos cosmiques de haute énergie peut apporter des réponses à des problèmes importants comme l'origine des rayons cosmiques et les procédures d'émission des rayons gamma. Dans la première partie de la thèse, le flux des neutrinos émis par des sources galactiques et extragalactiques et le nombre des évènements qui peut être détecté par ANTARES sont estimés. Cette étude utilise les spectres des rayons gamma des sources connues en tenant compte de l'absorption de ces rayons par la lumière extragalactique diffuse. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, le pointage absolu du télescope ANTARES est étudié. Étant situé à une profondeur de 2475 m dans l'eau de mer, l'orientation du détecteur est déterminée par un système de positionnement acoustique qui utilise des ondes de basse et haute fréquences entre la surface de la mer et le fond. La troisième partie de la thèse est la recherche des sources ponctuelles de neutrinos avec les données d'ANTARES. L'algorithme de recherche est basé sur une méthode de maximisation du rapport de vraisemblance. Il est utilisé dans deux stratégies de recherche; "la stratégie de recherche avec des sources candidates" et "la stratégie de recherche dans tout le ciel". L'analyse des données de 2007+2008 n'a pas marqué une découverte. Les meilleures limites supérieures au monde sur les flux de neutrinos provenant des différentes sources dans l'Hémisphère Sud sont établies. / The aim of this thesis is the search for high energy cosmic neutrinos emitted by point sources with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The detection of high energy cosmic neutrinos can bring answers to important questions such as the origin of cosmic rays and the gamma rays emission processes. In the first part of the thesis, the neutrino flux emitted by galactic and extragalactic sources and the number of events which can be detected by ANTARES are estimated. This study uses the measured gamma ray spectra of known sources taking into account the gamma ray absorption by the extragalactic background light. In the second part of the thesis, the absolute pointing of the ANTARES telescope is evaluated. Being located at a depth of 2475 m in sea water, the orientation of the detector is determined by an acoustic positioning system which relies on low and high frequency acoustic waves measurements between the sea surface and the bottom. The third part of the thesis is a search for neutrino point sources in the ANTARES data. The search algorithm is based on a likelihood ratio maximization method. It is used in two search strategies; "the candidate sources list strategy" and "the all sky search strategy". Analysing 2007+2008 data, no discovery is made and the world's best upper limits on neutrino fluxes from various sources in the Southern sky are established.

Programmers often have to choose components online for reuse based on software quality. To help with this choice, most component repositories (SourceForge, CodeProject, etc.) provide information such as user ratings and reviews of components. However, the reusability of components is not immediately obvious from this material. To make things worse, reviews and other material could potentially contradict one another about reusability or any other issue. Moreover, there could be multiple components that claim to perform identical tasks in which case it becomes difficult to identify the most reusable component. This thesis presents the result of two studies aimed at discovering how to use material from a component repository to automatically characterize the reusability of components. It was found that two factors (out of three) were significant predictors of reusability. Additionally, a review summarizer was developed to summarize user reviews and return the overall opinion reflected by the comments. / Graduation date: 2013

Abstract The use of celebrity endorsement strategy is nowadays more frequently used by marketers in order to increase their sales and thereby extend their market shares. Many celebrities are used in various marketing campaigns and in most cases; the use of celebrities as endorsers is seen from mainly positive aspects. This made the authors curious whether the negative aspects, that also exists when using celebrities as endorsers, affects consumers in their purchasing decisions when a celebrity gets associated with negative publicity. Another cause of interest is which factors of a certain celebrity are most important and crucial in consumers’ perceptions, in the case of negative publicity. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study which factors consumers find important for a company to consider when a celebrity gets negative publicity, to maintain successful brand recognition. Literature review: The use of previous studies within the field of celebrity endorsement clarifies many important aspects when it comes to celebrity endorsement and this chapter is elaborated from 4 different perspectives; Company, Celebrity, Brand and Consumer. Based on previous studies, the authors identified 6 crucial attributes when using celebrities as endorsers and this can also be seen as a pre-study that the research process has been based upon. Furthermore, the 6 attributes are chosen from the three first mentioned perspectives in order to be able to fulfil the purpose. Hence, this thesis is conducted from a consumer’s point of view. Method: A quantitative method is used in this thesis since the authors want to base the results on collected data that is expressed in numbers and also to generate a general apprehension in this phenomenon. Moreover, the combinations containing the 6 attributes are used in the conjoint experiment. Conclusions: It was proven in this study that consumers do get affected by celebrities as endorser, when the attributes from the literature review are in a combination. But, the consumers’ perception of the attributes differs in different cases. However, the main finding was that there are two crucial attributes, trustworthiness and expertise that companies should take into account when using celebrities in their advertising campaign.