A piece of popular music is usually defined as a combination of vocal melody and instrumental accompaniment. People often start with the melody part when they are trying to compose or reproduce a piece of popular music. However, creating appropriate instrumental accompaniment part for a melody line can be a difficult task for non-musicians. Automation of accompaniment generation for vocal melodies thus can be very useful for those who are interested in singing for fun. Therefore, a computer software system which is capable of generating harmonic accompaniment for a given vocal melody input has been presented in this thesis. This automatic accompaniment system uses a Hidden Markov Model to assign chord to a given part of melody based on the knowledge learnt from a bank of vocal tracks of popular music. Comparing with other similar systems, our system features a high resolution key estimation algorithm which is helpful to adjust the generated accompaniment to the input vocal. Moreover, we designed a structure analysis subsystem to extract the repetition and structure boundaries from the melody. These boundaries are passed to the chord assignment and style player subsystems in order to generate more dynamic and organized accompaniment. Finally, prototype applications are discussed and the entire system is evaluated.

<p>The aim of this thesis was to explore and analyze the sponsored debates on Newsmill, so called seminars. How does the sponsor use Newsmills seminars for marketing purposes? Who is allowed to write in Newsmills seminars?</p><p>To answer these questions we used both a quantitative survey and a qualitative survey.</p><p>To examine how the sponsors use Newsmills seminars for marketing purposes we conducted a qualitative analysis which included three of the eleven seminars - a total of 26 articles. We examined how the sponsors conveyed the picture of themselves and if the written content in Newsmills seminars contained any hidden marketing. We could see that the sponsor has a great deal of influence on the seminars and also used them to market their brand with hybrid messages. Sponsors often tried to relate their brand to a public issue in order to camouflage their commercial purposes.</p><p>The quantitative survey aimed to map the seminars and answer the question “Who is allowed to write in Newsmills seminars?”. We observed how many of the writers were male/female, had a Swedish/foreign name, had a certain position in society and if the writer had any connection to, or wrote about, the sponsor. We examined all articles ever published in Newsmills seminars, up to the day of the survey. A total of 164 articles in 11 different seminars.</p><p>Our result showed that female writers are a minority group in Newsmills seminars. So are people with foreign names and people who lack a position which grants them authority.</p>

Universiẗat, Diss., 2000--Duisburg.

Brandenburgische Techn. University, Diss., 2004--Cottbus.

Virtually all methods of learning dynamic models from data start from the same basic assumption: that the learning algorithm will be provided with a single or multiple sequences of data generated from the dynamic model. However, in quite a few modern time series modeling tasks, the collection of reliable time series data turns out to be a major challenge, due to either slow progression of the dynamic process of interest, or inaccessibility of repetitive measurements of the same dynamic process over time. In most of those situations, however, we observe that it is easier to collect a large amount of non-sequence samples, or random snapshots of the dynamic process of interest without time information. This thesis aims to exploit such non-sequence data in learning a few widely used dynamic models, including fully observable, linear and nonlinear models as well as Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). For fully observable models, we point out several issues on model identifiability when learning from non-sequence data, and develop EM-type learning algorithms based on maximizing approximate likelihood. We also consider the setting where a small amount of sequence data are available in addition to non-sequence data, and propose a novel penalized least square approach that uses non-sequence data to regularize the model. For HMMs, we draw inspiration from recent advances in spectral learning of latent variable models and propose spectral algorithms that provably recover the model parameters, under reasonable assumptions on the generative process of non-sequence data and the true model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first formal guarantee on learning dynamic models from non-sequence data. We also consider the case where little sequence data are available, and propose learning algorithms that, as in the fully observable case, use non-sequence data to provide regularization, but does so in combination with spectral methods. Experiments on synthetic data and several real data sets, including gene expression and cell image time series, demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed methods. In the last part of the thesis we return to the usual setting of learning from sequence data, and consider learning bi-clustered vector auto-regressive models, whose transition matrix is both sparse, revealing significant interactions among variables, and bi-clustered, identifying groups of variables that have similar interactions with other variables. Such structures may aid other learning tasks in the same domain that have abundant non-sequence data by providing better regularization in our proposed non-sequence methods.

Casamento de padrões de pontos em Espaços Euclidianos é um dos problemas fundamentais em reconhecimento de padrões, tendo aplicações que vão desde Visão Computacional até Química Computacional. Sempre que dois padrões complexos estão codi- ficados em termos de dois conjuntos de pontos que identificam suas características fundamentais, sua comparação pode ser vista como um problema de casamento de padrões de pontos. Este trabalho propõe uma abordagem unificada para os problemas de casamento exato e inexato de padrões de pontos em Espaços Euclidianos de dimensão arbitrária. No caso de casamento exato, é garantida a obtenção de uma solução ótima. Para casamento inexato (quando ruído está presente), resultados experimentais confirmam a validade da abordagem. Inicialmente, considera-se o problema de casamento de padrões de pontos como um problema de casamento de grafos ponderados. O problema de casamento de grafos ponderados é então formulado como um problema de inferência Bayesiana em um modelo gráfico probabilístico. Ao explorar certos vínculos fundamentais existentes em padrões de pontos imersos em Espaços Euclidianos, provamos que, para o casamento exato de padrões de pontos, um modelo gráfico simples é equivalente ao modelo completo. É possível mostrar que inferência probabilística exata neste modelo simples tem complexidade polinomial para qualquer dimensionalidade do Espaço Euclidiano em consideração. Experimentos computacionais comparando esta técnica com a bem conhecida baseada em relaxamento probabilístico evidenciam uma melhora significativa de desempenho para casamento inexato de padrões de pontos. A abordagem proposta é signi- ficativamente mais robusta diante do aumento do tamanho dos padrões envolvidos. Na ausência de ruído, os resultados são sempre perfeitos. / Point pattern matching in Euclidean Spaces is one of the fundamental problems in Pattern Recognition, having applications ranging from Computer Vision to Computational Chemistry. Whenever two complex patterns are encoded by two sets of points identifying their key features, their comparison can be seen as a point pattern matching problem. This work proposes a single approach to both exact and inexact point set matching in Euclidean Spaces of arbitrary dimension. In the case of exact matching, it is assured to find an optimal solution. For inexact matching (when noise is involved), experimental results confirm the validity of the approach. We start by regarding point pattern matching as a weighted graph matching problem. We then formulate the weighted graph matching problem as one of Bayesian inference in a probabilistic graphical model. By exploiting the existence of fundamental constraints in patterns embedded in Euclidean Spaces, we prove that for exact point set matching a simple graphical model is equivalent to the full model. It is possible to show that exact probabilistic inference in this simple model has polynomial time complexity with respect to the number of elements in the patterns to be matched. This gives rise to a technique that for exact matching provably finds a global optimum in polynomial time for any dimensionality of the underlying Euclidean Space. Computational experiments comparing this technique with well-known probabilistic relaxation labeling show significant performance improvement for inexact matching. The proposed approach is significantly more robust under augmentation of the sizes of the involved patterns. In the absence of noise, the results are always perfect.

Les Interfaces Cerveau-Machine (ICM) sont des systèmes qui permettent à des patients souffrant d'un handicap moteur sévère d'utiliser leur activité cérébrale pour contrôler des effecteurs, par exemple des prothèses des membres supérieurs dans le cas d'ICM motrices. Les intentions de mouvement de l'utilisateur sont estimées en appliquant un décodeur sur des caractéristiques extraites de son activité cérébrale. Des challenges spécifiques au déploiement clinique d'ICMs motrices ont été considérés, à savoir le contrôle mono-membre ou séquentiel multi-membre asynchrone et précis. Un décodeur, le Markov Switching Linear Model (MSLM), a été développé pour limiter les activations erronées de l'ICM, empêcher des mouvements parallèles des effecteurs et décoder avec précision des mouvements complexes. Le MSLM associe des modèles linéaires à différents états possibles, e.g. le contrôle d'un membre spécifique ou une phase de mouvement particulière. Le MSLM réalise une détection d'état dynamique, et les probabilités des états sont utilisées pour pondérer les modèles linéaires.La performance du décodeur MSLM a été évaluée pour la reconstruction asynchrone de trajectoires de poignet et de doigts à partir de signaux electrocorticographiques. Il a permis de limiter les activations erronées du système et d'améliorer la précision du décodage du signal cérébral. / Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are systems that allow severely motor-impaired patients to use their brain activity to control external devices, for example upper-limb prostheses in the case of motor BCIs. The user's intentions are estimated by applying a decoder on neural features extracted from the user's brain activity. Signal processing challenges specific to the clinical deployment of motor BCI systems are addressed in the present doctoral thesis, namely asynchronous mono-limb or sequential multi-limb decoding and accurate decoding during active control states. A switching decoder, namely a Markov Switching Linear Model (MSLM), has been developed to limit spurious system activations, to prevent parallel limb movements and to accurately decode complex movements.The MSLM associates linear models with different possible control states, e.g. activation of a specific limb, specific movement phases. Dynamic state detection is performed by the MSLM, and the probability of each state is used to weight the linear models. The performance of the MSLM decoder was assessed for asynchronous wrist and multi-finger trajectory reconstruction from electrocorticographic signals. It was found to outperform previously reported decoders for the limitation of spurious activations during no-control periods and permitted to improve decoding accuracy during active periods.

[pt] A ocorrência de erros em surto é observada principalmente em canais sem fio. Para a análise e melhor entendimento deste tipo de erro, a fim de se melhorar os projetos de sistemas de comunicações digitais, uma modelagem mais precisa, de canais com esta característica, torna-se necessária. Uma diversidade de métodos de estimação de parâmetros tem sido estudada, principalmente aquelas baseadas nos Modelos Escondidos de Markov (HMM do ingês). Em geral cada método é focado em um sistema de comunicações específico, sobre uma camada específica. Neste trabalho é proposto um novo método baseado em um HMM com uma estrutura particular, que permite a dedução de expressões analíticas para todas as estatísticas de interesse. A estrutura do modelo proposto permite a geração de eventos que ocorrem numa sequência binária de dados sujeita a surtos de erro, de acordo com a definição de surtos de erro do CCITT. O modelo proposto possui um número fixo de apenas sete parâmetros, mas o seu número de estados cresce com um de seus parâmetros, que aumenta a precisão, mas não a complexidade. Este trabalho adotou técnicas de otimização, associadas aos métodos de Máxima Verossimilhança e Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) a fim de realizar a estimação dos parâmetros do modelo proposto. Os resultados demonstram que o modelo proposto permite a caracterização precisa de canais com memória de diversas origens. / [en] The occurrence of error busts is mainly observed in wireless channels. For analysis and a better understanding of such errors, in order to improve the design of communication systems, an accurate modeling of channels with this characteristic is necessary. A lot of parameter estimation methods have been studied, mainly the ones based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM). In general each method is focused in a specific communication system, on a specific layer. In this work it is proposed a new method based on a HMM with particular structure that allows the deduction of analytical expressions for all statistics of interest. The structure of the proposed model permits the generation of events that occur in a binary data sequence subject to bursts of error concerning CCITT error burst definition. The proposed model has a fixed number of only seven parameters but its number of states increase with one of those parameters that increase the accuracy but not the complexity. This work adopted techniques of optimization associated to Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to perform the parameter estimation to the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model achieves accurate characterization of channels with memory from many different sources.

Understanding the behavior of pedestrians in road transportation is critical to maintain a safe en- vironment. Accidents on road transportation are one of the most common causes of death today. As autonomous vehicles start to become a standard in our society, safety on road transportation becomes increasingly important. Road transportation is a complex system with a lot of dierent factors. Identifying risky behaviors and preventing accidents from occurring requires better under- standing of the behaviors of the dierent persons involved. In this thesis the activities and behavior of a pedestrian is analyzed. Using sensor data from phones, eight dierent events of a pedestrian are classied using machine learning algorithms. Features extracted from phone sensors that can be used to model dierent pedestrian activities are identied. Current state of the art literature is researched to nd relevant machine learning algorithms for a classication model. Two models are implemented using two dierent machine learning algorithms: Articial Neural Network and Hid- den Markov Model. Two dierent experiments are conducted where phone sensor data is collected and classied using the models, achieving a classication accuracy of up to 93%.

The forms discovered by our proposal can be directly used as training data by some form classifiers. Our experimental validation used thousands of real Web forms, divided into six domains, including a representative subset of the publicly available DeepPeep form base (DEEPPEEP, 2010; DEEPPEEP REPOSITORY, 2011). Our results show that it is feasible to mitigate the demanding manual work required by two cutting-edge form classifiers (i.e., GFC and DSFC (BARBOSA; FREIRE, 2007a)), at the cost of a relatively small loss in effectiveness.