This thesis deal with digital signal proccessing methods, possibilities their processing and especially audio signal watermarking like possibility safeguard author's rights of audio content. In this thesis are foreshadoweds basic audio watermarking methods and possibilities of watermark detection. To idea generation about watermarking there is described audio watermarking method known as Echo Hiding. This method embed watermarks to audio content in time-domain while watermark detection is made in kepstral-domain by using Fast Fourier Transform and correlation function. Method is implemented like VST plug - in and along with ASIO drivers that minimize signal latency provides audio signal watermarking in real - time. Aim of the first volume of this thesis is introduction of VST technology, ASIO driver and creating VST plug – in‘s. Alternative volume of thesis deal with implementation watermarking methods in conjunction with VST technology.

The following diploma thesis is devoted to the desktop sharing description and its opportunities. Existing solutions and their advantages and disadvantages are described at the beginning of the text. The most extensive part deals with the design and the implementation of a new solution for the desktop sharing. The thesis aims at providing a possibility to observe desktop of one computer from another one. For achieving it, two appliactions (a server and a client) have been developed, and they are described in the text with utilization of UML (Unified Modeling Language) diagrams. The RFB (Remote Framebuffer) protocol has been chosen as the means for communication between the applications. A detailed description of this protocol is also included in the text. The developed solution is tested and compared with other similar applications in the final part of the work. After that, some areas needing slight improvements are named to achieve competitiveness of the developed solution with other applications of a similar type.

Hlavním cílem této práce je obohatit hudební signály charakteristikami lidské řeči. Práce zahrnuje tvorbu audioefektu inspirovaného efektem talk-box: analýzu hlasového ústrojí vhodným algoritmem jako je lineární predikce, a aplikaci odhadnutého filtru na hudební audio-signál. Důraz je kladen na dokonalou kvalitu výstupu, malou latenci a nízkou výpočetní náročnost pro použití v reálném čase. Výstupem práce je softwarový plugin využitelný v profesionálních aplikacích pro úpravu audia a při využití vhodné hardwarové platformy také pro živé hraní. Plugin emuluje reálné zařízení typu talk-box a poskytuje podobnou kvalitu výstupu s unikátním zvukem.

This study explored the possible impact to a game’s responsiveness and to players’ preferences by using a physically inspired model (real-time pitch and amplitude modulation) as a means of efficiently achieving responsive variation for melee weapon sound effects in a game using the in-engine audio features. A play test was created were 24 participants (12 with audio engineering backgrounds, 12 without), all with prior gaming experience, played through a game level where they would audition a non-variational implementation of a sword’s sound effects and a variational implementation with the same sound samples being modulated in real-time. The participants did not know what they were auditioning, and in a form filled out after the play test they assessed the differences in the level parts’ responsiveness and their preference. From this form no significant benefit or drawback was found to the game’s responsiveness, and no significance was found to the participants’ preference toward either sound effect implementation. The study’s conclusions are that these physically inspired models could be used as a mean of implementation for melee weapon sound effects if the sounds used or the game setting would suit this approach, or if this would be the artistic wish of the game developers.

En ljudlogotyp är en ljudkomposition som används för att särskilja ett varumärke. Ljudlogotypen ingår i varumärkens strategiska arbete för att skapa sig en bild i konsumenters medvetande. Denna bild kallas varumärkesuppfattning. Syftet med denna studie var att utöka kunskapen om hur musik kan användas i kommunikativt syfte i allmänhet och om hur melodin påverkar uppfattningen av varumärken i synnerhet. En webbenkät genomfördes för att studera om olika typer av melodisk kontur hos en ljudlogotyp kan ge olika effekter på hur ett fiktivt varumärke uppfattas ifråga om varumärkespersonlighet. Deltagare rekryterades via sociala medier. Till undersökningen utformades åtta videoklipp innehållande en ljudlogotyp och en grafisk logotyp. Videoklippen var identiska förutom att den melodiska konturen skilde dem åt. Deltagarna skattade i vilken grad de uppfattade fem olika personlighetsdrag hos den ljudlogotyp de fick höra. Resultaten analyserades statistiskt. Genom undersökningen genererades inget stöd för att typ av melodisk kontur skulle ha någon påverkan på uppfattningen av de fem personlighetsdragen. Lämpliga metoder för undersökningar om ljudlogotyper och varumärkesuppfattning diskuteras. För framtida studier inom området föreslås kvalitativa studier samt studier som undersöker andra musikaliska parametrar. Vidare efterfrågas mer forskning om melodisk kontur. / An audio logo, also called sonic logo or sound logo, is a sound composition utilized to differentiate a brand. A sonic logo is part of a brand’s strategy to create an image in the awareness of consumers. This image is called brand perception. The objective of this study was to expand general knowledge about music’s applicability for communicative purposes and moreover to specifically look at how melody affects brand perception. A web survey was conducted to investigate if different types of melodic contour in an audio logo can have different effects on the perception of brand identity for a fictional brand. Participants were recruited using social media. Eight videos consisting of an audio logo and a graphic logo were designed. The videos were identical apart from their melodic contours. Participants rated the degree to which they perceived five different personality traits for the audio logo they heard. The results were analyzed statistically. Through the survey, no support was generated for an impact from the type of melodic contour on the perception of the five personality traits. Appropriate methods for investigating audio logos and brand perception are discussed. For future research within the field qualitative design is suggested, as well asinvestigations into other musical parameters. Furthermore, additional research into melodic contour is proposed.

I det här kandidatarbetet har vi genom enbart ljudberättande försökt ta reda på hur vi kan belysa det viktiga ämnet nätmobbning. Vi har genom ett antal källor om ljudberättande med och utan visuellt stöd, tagit med allt viktigt i berättande för att sedan skapa en egen historia som ska beröra. Viktigt att ljuden är igenkänningsbara, att lyssnaren vet vad som händer och att det inte får upplevas otydligt i sammanhanget. Vi vill genom den här undersökningen beröra människor till att våga prata om psykisk ohälsa. Vi valde därför att använda oss utav X for Change, ett designperspektiv som grundar sig inom spelvärlden, men dess tankar och riktlinjer går att anpassa inom ljud likaväl genom vår tolkning. För att genomföra kandidatarbetet har vi använt mindmapping och brainstorming för att ta fram ett manus och innehåll. Vi har genom intervjuer tagit del av människors egna upplevelser kring psykisk ohälsa och applicerat de känslor som återkom, nämligen ensamhet, rädsla och svartsjukan att ‘varför just jag, varför ingen annan’. Vikten för oss har varit att få med känslan, genom de ljudeffekter och ambienser vi spelat in genom med Foley. För att strukturera upp det här arbetet har vi använt agila projektmetoder. Designprocessen delas upp i fyra delar, design phase I-III samt färdig gestaltning, där vi går från idé till färdig gestaltning. Vi presenterar de val vi gjort, tekniker vi använt, specifika delar från forskningen som speglar det vi gjort samt varför vissa förändringar gav positivt resultat. Resultatet i sin tur presenterar åsikter om vi anser vi lyckats, vad vi mer fått fram från undersökningen samt relationen mellan gestaltningen och frågeställning samt syfte. Vi avslutar med diskussion där vi kritiskt granskar arbetet och diskuterar problematiken genom valda frågor. / In this Bachelor Thesis we have used sound narrative only, to investigate how to illuminate the important topic, cyber bullying. We have gone through several sources of Audio storytelling with and without anything visual to support. The sources included everything we find important in storytelling, to create our own history and hopefully affect people. It’s important that the listener will recognize the sounds, so they do know what is happening. The story will not be unclear in the context for the listeners. Through this study, we want to affect people, to dare to talk about mental illness, so we have chosen X for Change as our design perspective. X for Change is based in the gaming world, but its thoughts and guidelines can be adapted within sound, as well as in according to our interpretation.    We´ve accomplished this Bachelor Thesis, by creating a script and content through mind mapping and brainstorming. We collect information about mental illness by interviewing people about their experiences. The results of most of the interviews applied the feeling that kept coming back, which was loneliness, fear and jealousy like ‘why me, why not someone else’. For us it has been important to get the feelings right, through the sound effects and ambiences we have recorded, are the most important in this project, thanks to the techniques of Foley. We have used agile project methods to structure our work process in this Bachelor Thesis.    The design process we used is divided into four parts, design phase I-III and the finished design. We will go from idea to the finished design. We will also present the choices we faced and the techniques we decided to use, specific parts of research that reflect what we have done, and why some changes made a positive result in the end. The result will be presented and our opinions on whatever we succeed or do not succeed in the relationship between the design, our question and our purpose. At the end of this essay we will discuss our critical review on this work by asking selected questions that we have made ourselves.

In 2 experiments, I investigated the role of conditioned seeing on incidental bidirectional naming (Inc-BiN) for unfamiliar stimuli and reading achievement. In Experiment 1, I investigated the correlation, associations, and differences between conditioned seeing, Inc-BiN, and measures of reading achievement for 49 participants in kindergarten through second grade. Unfamiliar visual stimuli were presented with spoken words during a naming experience and participants’ stimulus control for conditioned seeing was measured by drawing responses in the absence of the target stimuli. Reading achievement measures included Winter and Spring diagnostic scores from the iReady® K-12 Adaptive Reading diagnostic (Curriculum Associates, LLC, 2017). Pearson’s correlation analyses showed that participants’ stimulus control for conditioned seeing was significantly correlated with all measures of reading achievement and the stimulus control for untaught listener responses (Inc-UniN), 𝘳 (47) = .440, 𝑝 = .002, and untaught speaker responses (Inc-BiN), 𝘳 (47) = .384, 𝑝 = .007. A Spearman’s rank correlation test showed that participants’ performance percentile for the iReady® reading diagnostic was also significantly correlated with participants’ stimulus control for conditioned seeing. Lastly, results from the independent sample t-tests showed that there were significant differences in participants’ stimulus control for Inc-UniN and Inc-BiN and reading achievement as a function of low and high stimulus control for conditioned seeing. Experiment 1 established the need to further investigate conditioned seeing and its effects on reading comprehension and Inc-BiN for students in kindergarten through second grade, thus in Experiment 2, I investigated the effects of a multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across delayed selection and production responses intervention on the establishment of conditioned seeing for 6 kindergarten students. Furthermore, I investigated the effects of the establishment conditioned seeing on reading comprehension, conditioned reinforcement for books without pictures, and Inc-BiN. Results show that the MEI across delayed selection and production responses was effective in establishing conditioned seeing for all participants. Results further show that the establishment of conditioned seeing resulted in increases in measures for reading comprehension and the reinforcement value for books without pictures. Though the establishment of conditioned seeing did not establish Inc-BiN for participants, Experiment 2 demonstrates the need to further investigate the relation between conditioned seeing and Inc-BiN in young readers.

Cet exposé analyse les perspectives large bande des réseaux PMR, à travers l'évaluation du candidat LTE, et la proposition d'une possible évolution du codage canal, la solution brevetée des codes turbo à protection non uniforme. Une première étude dans le chapitre 2 se concentre sur l'analyse multi-couche et l'identification des problèmes clé des communications de voix et de vidéo sur un réseau LTE professionnel. Les capacités voix et vidéo sont estimées pour les liens montant et descendant de la transmission LTE, et l'efficacité spectrale de la voix en lien descendant est comparée à celle de PMR et GSM. Ce chapitre souligne certains points clé de l'évolution de LTE. S'ils étaient pas résolus par la suite, LTE se verrait perdre de sa crédibilité en tant que candidat à l'évolution de la PMR. Une telle caractéristique clé des réseaux PMR est le codage canal à protection non uniforme, qui pourrait être adapté au système LTE pour une évolution aux contraintes de la sécurité publique. Le chapitre 3 introduit cette proposition d'évolution, qui a été brevetée: les turbo codes à protection non uniforme intégrée. Nous proposons une nouvelle approche pour le codage canal à protection non uniforme à travers les codes turbo progressives hiérarchiques. Les configurations parallèles et séries sont analysées. Les mécanismes de protection non uniformes sont intégrés dans la structure de l'encodeur même à travers l'insertion progressif et hiérarchique de nouvelles données de l'utilisateur. Le turbo décodage est modifié pour exploiter de façon optimale l'insertion progressive de données dans le processus d'encodage et estimer hiérarchiquement ces données. Les propriétés des structures parallèles et séries sont analysées à l'aide d'une analogie aux codes pilotes, ainsi qu'en regardant de plus près leurs caractéristiques de poids de codage. Le taux de transmission virtuel et les représentations des graphs factor fournissent une meilleure compréhension de ces propriétés. Les gains de codage sont évalués à l'aide de simulations numériques, en supposant des canaux de transmission radio statiques et dynamiques, et en utilisant des codes de référence. Enfin, dans le chapitre 4, l'idée breveté du code turbo parallal progressif et hiérarchique (PPHTC) est évaluée sur la plateforme LTE. Une description détaillée de l'architecture des bearers de LTE est donnée, et ses conséquences sont discutées. Le nouveau codage canal est inséré et évalué sur cette plateforme, et ses performances sont comparées avec des schémas de transmission typique à LTE. L'analyse de la qualité de la voix aide à conclure sur l'efficacité de la solution proposée dans un système de transmission réel. Pourtant, même si cette dernière donne les meilleurs résultats, d'avantage d'optimisations devraient être envisagées pour obtenir des gains améliorés et mieux exploiter le potentiel du codage proposé. L'exposé se conclut dans le chapitre 5 et une courte discussion présente les futures perspectives de recherche / This dissertation analyzes the PMR broadband perspectives, through the evaluation of the preferred candidate, LTE, and the proposal of a possible channel coding evolution, the patented solution of unequal error protection embedded turbo codes. A first study in chapter 2 focuses on the multi-layer analysis and the identification of key issues for professional-like LTE for voice and video communications. The voice and video capacities are estimated for both downlink and uplink LTE transmissions, and the downlink LTE voice system efficiency is compared with that of the PMR and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). This chapter helps highlighting some of the key points. If not resolved, the latter could lead to the LTE downfall as a candidate for the PMR evolution. One such key characteristic of PMR systems is the unequal error protection channel coding technique, which might be adapted to the LTE technology for its evolution to public safety requirements. Chapter 3 further introduces the proposed evolution patented ideas: the unequal error protection embedded turbo codes. We propose a new approach for the unequal error protection channel coding through the progressive hierarchical turbo codes. Both parallel and serial turbo configurations are closely studied. The unequal error protection mechanisms are embedded in the encoder’s structure itself through the progressive and hierarchical insertion of new data. The turbo decoding is modified as to optimally exploit the progressive insertion of information in the encoding process and hierarchically estimate the corresponding data. Both parallel and serial configurations’ properties are analyzed using an analogy with a pilot code behavior, as well as a zoom on the weight error functions coefficients. The virtual code rate and factor graph interpretations also provide a better insight on the code properties. The code possible gains are highlighted through computer simulations in both static and dynamic transmission environments, by using carefully chosen benchmarks. Finally, in chapter 4, the patented idea of parallel progressive hierarchical turbo codes (PPHTC) is evaluated over the LTE platform. A detailed description is given of the voice transmission bearer architecture over LTE, and its consequences are discussed. The new channel code is inserted and evaluated over this platform and its performances compared with the existent LTE transmission schemes. The voice quality results help concluding on the efficiency of the proposed solution in a real transmission scenario. However, even though the newly presented solution gives the best results, further system optimizations should be envisaged for obtaining better gains and exploit the parallel progressive hierarchical turbo codes potential. The dissertation concludes in chapter 5 and a short discussion is given on future research perspectives

This thesis deals with a web-based lecture browser. Its goal is to facilitate the access to information with the use of modern speech and multimedia technologies. Technologies used for this browser are discussed. Video recordings play a very important role in the browser, and therefore the big portion of this work is aimed at the digital video and methods of its delivery using streaming servers. Solutions of similar multimedia browsers are mentioned. The reader is acquainted with the browser design. This includes describing the various components of the browser and how their mutual synchronization is done. The final version of the browser is introduced and the problems that occurred during the development process and deployment into service are mentioned. In the conclusion of this work the future development of the web-based lecture browser is discussed.

The emergence of Bluetooth Low Energy in combination with optimized coders has made it possible to transfer digital audio at very low bitrates, paving the way for small devices with longlasting batteries. The aim of this study is to compare the audio codecs LC3 and aptX, as well as peoples’ attitude towards audio quality in different contexts. Two open source implementations of the codecs are evaluated in terms of time for execution. Furthermore, the perceived audio quality of low bitrates are subjectively compared in a listening test in combination with a questionnaire regarding peoples’ attitude towards audio quality. The results show that LC3 is capable of delivering satisfying audio quality at very low bitrates, whilst also outperforming aptX. It will be interesting to see how LC3 will affect transmission latency, battery life and overall QoS once it is established in everyday products