Semestral thesis is devoted to mapping and verification technologies for the project active loudspeaker crossover using DSP. Three way systém will use open baffle. Design of analog crossover is complex due to the need of compensating for acoustic short circuit and properties of laudspeakers.

When people go to a mall, museums, or other such locations they tend to rely on maps to find their way around. However, for people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) maps are not easily accessible and they depend on other means, such as a guide, to get around. Research has only just begun to investigate providing maps for people who are BVI on touch screen devices. Many different types of feedback have been used: audio (sound), tactile (touch), audio-tactile, and multitouch. Some research has been conducted on the benefit of using multiple fingers (multitouch) and has found conflicting results. Yet, no known research has been conducted on the comparison of using audio feedback to that of tactile feedback. In this study, we look to try and answer two questions. 1.) Is audio equal to or better than tactile? As well as: 2.) Does multiple fingers help? Participants were asked to use seven different methods (4 audio, 3 tactile) to explore an overview map and an individual map and answer questions about them. Results showed that overall, audio cues are similar or better than tactile cues which is beneficial since it requires less battery to generate audio cues than tactile cues. It was also shown that the use of multiple fingers was more beneficial in tasks that are spatially demanding. While those who have tactile experience benefited when using two fingers with each finger represented by a different instrument played to separated ears.

Two of the leading methodologies for spatializing audio over multiple channels include non-real-time multi-track tape and variations of real-time systems that often involve complex configurations of hardware. Of the latter, composers relying on MIDI as a control source have used pairs of sound modules, effects units and automation capable mixers to achieve spatialization over four loudspeakers. These systems typically employ intensity panning, Doppler shifts and reverberation. The present research details the development of a compact spatialization system using a MAX patch controlling a Kurzweil K2500 sampler. This system supports real-time diffusion of up to six simultaneous sound files over eight loudspeakers while incorporating intensity panning, Doppler shifts, delays and filtering. The MAX patch allows composers to choose from several automatic sound spatialization trajectories or to use the mouse to draw and store their own trajectories for later playback. The piece, Circumfusion, is an eighteen-minute composition of electroacoustic music utilizing this spatialization system.

"The development of school libraries is an indication of the increasing awareness among our schools of the value of instructional materials in a good school program. With a better understanding of the teaching-learning process has come the realization that library materials should include audio-visual as well as printed materials. Many of the teachers, principals and supervisors did not have the opportunities to learn about audio-visual materials because it is comparatively new. Many of these people have used these kinds of materials once or twice with little or no success and given up hopes of further use. Just get the teachers to use these materials correctly and the quality of the educational program will be greatly improved. This paper is prepared in an attempt to show the simplicity or ease with which these materials may be used and the benefits derived from using them by making teaching more effective. It is also a justification for the use of audio-visual materials in the school program. This has been justified, for reading matter on audio-visual materials is volumnous"--Introduction. / "August, 1949." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts under Plan II." / Advisor: H. Dean, Major Professor. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 27-28).

Machine learning algorithms have shown their abilities to tackle difficult recognition problems, but they are still rife with challenges. Among these challenges is how to deal with problems where new categories constantly occur, and the datasets can dynamically grow. Most contemporary learning algorithms developed to this point are governed by the assumptions that all testing data classes must be the same as training data classes, often with equal distribution. Under these assumptions, machine-learning algorithms can perform very well, using their ability to handle large feature spaces and classify outliers. The systems under these assumptions are called Closed Set Recognition systems (CSR). However, these assumptions cannot reflect practical applications in which out-of-set data may be encountered. This adversely affects the recognition prediction performances. When samples from a new class occur, they will be classified as one of the known classes. Even if this sample is far from any of the training samples, the algorithm may classify it with a high probability, that is, the algorithm will not only be wrong, but it may also be very confident in its results. A more practical problem is Open Set Recognition (OSR), where samples of classes not seen during training may show up at testing time. Inherently, there is a problem how the system can identify the novel sound classes and how the system can update its models with new classes. This thesis highlights the problems of multi-class recognition for OSR of sounds as well as incremental model adaptation and proposes solutions towards addressing these problems. The proposed solutions are validated through extensive experiments and are shown to provide improved performance over a wide range of openness values for sound classification scenarios.

This study examined the changes that occur in spontaneous speech when speakers are distracted by background audio. Forty young adults answered open ended questions under five audio conditions (pink noise, movie dialogue, heated debate, classical music, and contemporary music) and a silent condition. Acoustic parameters assessed during the sessions included mean and variability of the fundamental frequency (F0), mean and variability of intensity, speaking time ratio, and disfluency ratio. It was hypothesized that there would be significant increases in the mean and variability of F0 as well as the mean and variability of intensity. There were statistically significant increases in mean and variability of intensity and mean F0 across most audio conditions. There were no significant changes in variability of intensity in the pink noise condition and no significant changes in variability of F0 in any audio condition. We hypothesized that the speaking time ratio would decrease in the presence of background audio compared to the silent baseline. Results demonstrate significant increases in speaking time ratio except for the classical music condition. It was expected that the disfluency ratio of speech production for each participant would increase in the presence of background audio, with informational masking demonstrating the most increase. Results revealed a significant increase in disfluency ratios across background audio conditions except for the pink noise and classical music conditions. Participants reported the heated debate and contemporary music to be the most distracting. These results have potential clinical implications regarding the type of environment where therapy is given, and what type of everyday situations might cause the most difficulties with fluency as well as the processing and production of speech.

Today a large percentage of the population uses a handheld (either a mobile phone or a PDA) a laptop computer, or some other computing device. As this penetration increases, the user wants to take as great an advantage of these devices as possible. It is for that reason that communication is demanded almost everywhere. Simply having continuous access to the network is no longer sufficient thus context awareness and easy accessibility are becoming more and more relevant. The idea of this masters thesis is to explore these ideas building on the prior work of Maria José Parajón Domínguez. The devices used for this study will be an HP iPAQ h5550 and a laptop. A client-server application, whose components will be explained in detail in further sections, was designed to study some factors that may be taken into account when trying to satisfy the users´ demands as stated above. One of these factors could be, for example, what are the effects of having a personal voice interface on the traffic to and from the user’s mobile device. The aim of this voice interface will be to provide more freedom to the user and also satisfy the demand for greater accessibility and facilitate mobile usage, not only for the common user, but also for handicapped people. Regarding the user’s desire to always have connectivity everywhere, we wish to examine the effects on the traffic to and from the user’s handheld, when exploiting significant local storage. Also related to the requirements on current devices to be always and everywhere connected and the huge amount of resources that this entails, it will be of interest to study the possibility of exchanging personalized CODECs (in the extreme case exchanging voice synthesis modules) and how this might affect traffic to and from the user’s mobile device. This last method could potentially greatly reducing both the demands on the communication links and the cost of this connectivity. With all these ideas in mind, this thesis aims to research an area that is nowadays continuously attracting new users and the goal is to find solutions to the demands that have resulted for these trends. / Användningen av portabla elektroniska apparater så som mobiltelefoner, handdatorer med mera är nu för tiden vida utbrett. Ju fler apparater som används desto större blir efterfrågan efter mobila tjänster för dessa. Som ett resultat ökar behovet av goda kommunikationslösningar, ofta mer komplexa än endast kontinuerlig dataåtkomst. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att fortsätta att utforska de idéer som Maria José Parajón Domínguez presenterat. För att utföra detta kommer en HP iPAQ h5550 och en bärbar dator att användas. En klient-server applikation kommer att tas fram för att undersöka några faktorer som påverkar kommunikationslösningarna. Ett exempel på en sådan faktor skulle kunna vara effekten av att ha ett personligt röstgränssnitt för trafiken. Syftet med detta gränssnitt skulle vara att erbjuda användaren större frihet och flexibilitet för sitt mobilanvändande, oavsett om användaren lider av något handikapp eller ej. Försök kommer även att göras med att lagra mycket data lokalt på användarens apparat, detta i ett försök att minska datatrafiken då många apparater kräver ständig och intensiv datakommunikation. Det är även av intresse att studera möjligheten av utbyte av personliga algoritmer, så kallade CODEC, och hur dessa skulle kunna påverka datatrafiken till och från den portabla apparaten. Det genomgående syftet för alla dessa faktorer är att sänka belastningen på de kommunikationslänkar som utnyttjas. Målet med denna studie är att undersöka några sätt att möta den ökade belastning på kommunikationssystemen som väntas om trenden för mobilt användande ökar.

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