ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The approach to recording data during Test & Evaluation has evolved dramatically over the decades. A simple, traditional approach is to pull all data into a PCM format and record that. A common current approach is to record data in an IRIG 106 Chapter 10 compliant format that records different forms of data (bus, discrete, video, etc.) in different channels of the recorder or exported data file. With network telemetry on the horizon, in the form of the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) standards, much of the data will be transported in iNET messages via Ethernet frames. These messages can potentially carry any type of data from any source. How do we record this data? Ultimately, no matter how the data is stored, it must be translated into a form that can be used for data analysis. Data storage forms that are conducive to this analysis are not necessarily the same that are conducive to real time recording. This paper discusses options and tradeoffs of different approaches to incorporating iNET data structures into the existing T&E architecture.

Design and operation of modular optical head for a magneto-optic test system are described. Alternate solutions to design problems are discussed. A 30mW semiconductor laser with an integrated 250MHz oscillator is selected. The oscillator is used to modulate laser read current for a reduction in laser feedback noise. A collimating lens with an appropriate focal length is chosen so the beam's truncation at the objective yields the maximum write power density. Astigmatism associated with the laser diode is reduced to 0.125 waves by defocusing the collimating lens and circularizing with an anamorphic prism pair. Head components are aligned within several minutes of arc by using alignment apertures and an autocollimator. Aberrations due to tilt between the disk and beam are examined and coma is found to be the major contributor.

This dissertation centers on virtuosity as a source of creative genesis, boundary-pushing, and musical debate. Focusing on the careers and works of pianists Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) and Glenn Gould (1932-1982), I examine the role of the virtuoso in twentieth-century music-making, and his encounter with Canadian national identity. Gould and Peterson were contemporaries, and despite their differences - Gould was a white classical musician from Toronto, and Peterson, an African Canadian jazz artist from Montréal - their career paths share points of connection. Using archival material from the Glenn Gould fonds and the Oscar Peterson fonds at Library and Archives Canada, I analyze the work of both figures as sources of musical creativity through musical performance and composition. The first part of this dissertation demonstrates how Gould's and Peterson's respective performances sparked furor through their contestation of musical boundaries. In the first chapter, my analysis of outtakes from Gould's 1955 recording session of the Goldberg Variations illuminates how his radical musical philosophies emerged from his early recording practices. In chapter two, I examine critiques of Peterson's performance aesthetic from an extensive collection of reviews, and argue that his style of virtuosic jazz allowed him to push back against musical expectations. In the third chapter, I examine the work of Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren whose experimental animation provided opportunities for partnerships with both musicians; with Peterson in 1949 and with Gould in 1969. The second part of my dissertation takes the reader outside the realm of performance and demonstrates how Gould and Peterson engaged with landscape through sound composition. The fourth chapter investigates the spatial and sonic interpretation of Canadian locales in Gould's Solitude Trilogy, a series of three experimental radio documentaries. In the final chapter, I unravel the biographical and musical influences in Peterson's multi-movement suite for jazz trio, Canadiana Suite. By studying these iconic virtuosos side-by-side, my dissertation illuminates the significance of the performer in Canada's cultural life in the second half of the twentieth-century and yields a new understanding of how Gould and Peterson exploded expectations in their respective musical communities. / Music

Regular inference is a research direction in machine learning. The goal of regular inference is to construct a representation of a regular language in the form of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) based on the set of positive and negative examples. DFAs take strings of symbols (words) as input, and produce a binary classification as output, indicating whether the word belongs to the language or not. There are two types of learning algorithms for DFAs: passive and active learning algorithms. In passive learning, the set of positive and negative examples is given and not chosen by inference algorithm. In contrast, in active learning, the learning algorithm chooses examples from which a model is constructed. Active learning was introduced in 1987 by Dana Angluin. She presented the L* algorithm for learning DFAs by asking membership and equivalence queries to a teacher who knows the regular language accepted by DFA to be learned. A membership query checks whether a word belongs to the language or not. An equivalence query checks whether a hypothesized model is equivalent to the DFA to be learned.The L* algorithm has been found to be useful in different areas, including black box checking, compositional verification and integration testing. There are also other algorithms similar to L* for regular inference. However, the learning of timed systems has not been studied before. This thesis presents algorithms for learning timed systems in an active learning framework. As a model of timed system we choose event-recording automata (ERAs), a determinizable subclass of the widely used timed automata. The advantages of ERA in comparison with timed automata, is that it is known priori the set of clocks of an ERA and when clocks are reset. The contribution of this thesis is four algorithms for learning deterministic event-recording automaton (DERA). Two algorithms learn a subclass of DERA, called event-deterministic ERA (EDERA) and two algorithms learn general DERA. The problem with DERAs that they do not have canonical form. Therefore we focus on subclass of DERAs that have canonical representation, EDERA, and apply the L* algorithm to learn EDERAs. The L* algorithm in timed setting requires a procedure that learns clock guards of DERAs. This approach constructs EDERAs which are exponentially bigger than automaton to be learned. Another procedure can be used to lean smaller EDERAs, but it requires to solve NP-hard problem. We also use the L* algorithm to learn general DERA. One drawback of this approach that inferred DERAs have a form of region graph and there is blow-up in the number of transitions. Therefore we introduce an algorithm for learning DERA which uses a new data structure for organising results of queries, called a timed decision tree, and avoids region graph construction. Theoretically this algorithm can construct bigger DERA than the L* algorithm, but in the average case we expect better performance.

"...music is an art that exists in point of time." Aaron Copland, What to Listen for in Music / Few definitions are adequate to describe music, but a "point of time" is a concept with which people are familiar. When musicians give concerts they try to create these points in a context, which allows the audience to observe each moment by itself. Concert practice has developed to define the edges of musical points, guided by cues such as clapping, pauses, and concert program notes. / This masters thesis investigates how to analyze concert recordings of Western music and their program notes to produce segments which best fit the boundaries of musical points. Modern segmentation techniques are reviewed and a new method specific to concert recordings is examined.

Globally, anurans have experienced significant declines and reliable monitoring protocols are required to track population trends. This thesis compares the effectiveness of manual call surveys (MCS) and automated recording systems (ARS) and describes the calling profiles of seven anuran species in southern Ontario. Using detailed audio recordings, we identify the seasonal and hourly calling patterns of seven anuran species at Warwick and Silver Creek Conservation Areas in the Credit River watershed. We employ descriptive and graphical methods to establish calling profiles. Given the low detection rate of American toads, grey treefrogs and northern leopard frogs, a survey protocol comprised of 9 weekly site visits are recommended in May and June. The optimal time of day for detecting the greatest abundance and species richness is 23h30 whereas optimal survey duration varies with hour and season given the target species. Climatic variables may induce or inhibit call activity and until the extent of these variables can be established, protocol guidelines should implement longer and more frequent site visits. The urgency of this revision is exacerbated for commercial surveys used to make contentious land management decisions.

Ontario cage culture operations produce the majority of farmed rainbow trout in Canada, using a diverse range of management practices that are expected to result in substantial variation in trout performance across the industry. A preliminary survey of performance data was undertaken, resulting in data from 5 commercial sites between 2008 and 2012. Commercial performance was somewhat poorer than expected, particularly for mortality rates, thermal-unit growth coefficients, and economic feed conversion ratios (average weighted values of 12%, 0.165, and 1.36, respectively). Substantial variability in all performance parameters within and across operations suggests that continued production monitoring and benchmarking could be highly valuable for improving the economic sustainability of the sector. For future benchmarking efforts to be effective, improvement and standardization of data collection methods is needed. As such, a number of recommendations are provided to the industry for the refinement and standardization of performance recording protocols used by Ontario producers.

The process of remastering old recordings comprises two basic stages: the transfer of the material from the source to a modern format, and the subsequent restoration of the transferred material through various forms of signal processing. The transfer stage in particular requires an understanding of issues which are becoming increasingly less familiar to engineers as the science of recording progresses further into the digital era. To a lesser extent, the restoration stage involves the use of certain techniques and forms of processing which are specific to this application. / This thesis is intended as a reference for those recording engineers who occasionally undertake remastering projects, but who are not thoroughly acquainted with the many different situations and problems which can be involved. Emphasis is given to those areas which are likely to be least familiar to most engineers. / In order to enable the engineer to properly assess a given source, the evolution and characteristics of each type of source--cylinder, disc and tape--is surveyed. This is followed in each case by an examination of the preparation, equipment and method used in transferring the source. Finally, the various types of processing which can be applied to the transferred material are presented, focusing on the techniques and forms of signal processing which are specific to audio restoration.

This thesis attempts to chart the development of a Jamaican musical form known as dub. This development is considered primarily in terms of the island's encounter with a series of new playback, amplification, recording, and sound treatment technologies. Section I focuses on the formation of the Jamaican sound system (a network of powerful mobile discos) and its pivotal role in the birth of a fertile domestic record industry. Section II extends the investigation to the Jamaican recording studio and record industry. What distinguishes this work from others on Jamaican dub is its emphasis on technology, and theories of technology, within a geo-political framework. In Section I, this emphasis is most notably informed by the work of Harold Innis, Karl Marx and Lewis Mumford, with Marshall McLuhan and Walter Benjamin becoming more prominent in Section II. Key technologies in this analysis include mechanization (mechanical reproducibility), the Williamson amplification circuit, the House of Joy speaker, the dub plate (acetate phonograph) and vinyl record, twin-turntables and the microphone, the magnetic tape recorder, and perhaps most importantly, the multi-track recorder and interface (the multi-track mixing-board).

Algorithms exist which will perform independent transformations on frequency or duration of a digital audio signal. These processes have different results different types of audio signals. A comparative study of granular and phase vocoder algorithms, implementation, and their respective effects on audio signals was made to determine which algorithm is best suited to a particular type of audio signal.