Iterative Improving of Transcribed Speech Recordings Exploiting Listener's Feedback Abstract This Ph.D. thesis deals with making a corpus of audio recordings of a single speaker accessible to wide public and interested community. The work has been motivated by the existence of a set of perishing recordings of the Czech philosopher Karel Makoň on magnetophone tapes. The aim is to conserve the material for future generations and making it accessible using digital technologies, in particular publishing the recordings online and enabling the users to search through them. The thesis introduces the creation of a system for transcribing a large set of speech recordings employing a lay community. The solution designed is based on obtaining a baseline low-quality transcription by means of automated speech recognition and developing an application that allows for collecting corrections of the automatic transcription in a fashion that makes it usable as training data for further improvement of said transcription. The spoken corpus itself is described. The author and his works, topics cove- red in the talks, the process of recording and digitization as well as the gained transcription are introduced. Next, the development of a system for automated transcription of the corpus, from collecting data, to acoustic and...

The dissertation thesis focuses on objective assessment and reduction of disturbing background noise in a musical signal. In this work, a new algorithm for the assessment of background noise audibility is proposed. The listening tests performed show that this new algorithm better predicts the background noise audibility than the existing algorithms do. An advantage of this new algorithm is the fact that it can be used even in the case of a general audio signal and not only musical signal, i.e. in the case when the audibility of one sound on the background of another sound is assessed. The existing algorithms often fail in this case. The next part of the dissertation thesis deals with an adaptive segmentation scheme for the segmentation of long-term musical signals into short segments of different lengths. A new adaptive segmentation scheme is then introduced here. It has been shown that this new adaptive segmentation scheme significantly improves the subjectively perceived quality of the musical signal from the output of noise reduction systems which use this new adaptive segmentation scheme. The quality improvement is better than that achieved by other segmentation schemes tested.

This thesis deals with design and implementation of multi-channel audio signal streaming via local network. The aim was to choose suitable processor for the transmission of up to 32 channels of audio signal, which will be used for implementation. Also the low-latency ASIO driver was studied and was used to provide timestamps for synchronization. The transmission protocol was designed for signaling and for the real time stream. The actual transmission is provided by TCP protocol. In conclusion, I created the application for development board with choosen MCU. Finally whole solution was tested with real data.

Resume The thesis is focused mainly on the rights of phonogram and audiovisual fixation producers. Choosing this topic came as a result of my own personal interest in music, as well as the constantly active public debate regarding the protection of rights of the producers in relation to the expantion of internet and related transmission of digital data. Part one is followed by establishing main terms, specifically the phonograms and their producers, and audiovisual fixations and their producers. The history of copyright protection and related rights is discussed in the third part. Despite the long history of intelectual property protection, copyright and related rights were not included into the Czech legal system until 1953. The historical excursion into copyright and related rights leads to exploration of the rights of phonograms and audiovisual fixations producers, especially in the light of how easy their worldwide distribution in today`s world is. Copyright is based on the quasidual concept of personal and property rights. Producers of phonograms or audiovisual fixations are granted solely property rights. The last two chapters are devoted to the explanation of individual rights and their potential civil or public protection under the valid Czech legal system.

This diploma thesis deals with issues of low frequency acoustics and simulation. In this work the FTDT method of simulation is used. Measuring and simulation are focused on live-sound system and are evaluated using basic sound system optimisation techniques. Main output of this work is verification of basic low-frequency acoustics principles using simulation and measuring.

The thesis deals with the analysis of technology used during the design of headphones with integrated active ambient noise cancellation and examines the possibilities of using adaptive filters to simplify development and achieve more effective attenuation.

This thesis deals with audio inpainting problem. Firstly, basic concepts are summarized. Then, sparse representation of signals is introduced along with several algorithms. In the main part dedicated to the audio inpainting, the problem is defined and actual methods are presented and compared. The newest approach using the harmonic strucure of sound signals is then introduced, followed by several experiments and evaluation. Lastly, an algorithm ensuring the maximal computational efficiency is derived.

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 thesis follows the trend of last decades in using neural networks in order to detect speech in noisy data. The text begins with basic knowledge about discussed topics, such as audio features, machine learning and neural networks. The network parameters are examined in order to provide the most suitable background for the experiments. The main focus of the experiments is to observe the influence of various sound events on the speech detection on a small, diverse database. Where the sound events correlated to the speech proved to be the most beneficial. In addition, the accuracy of the acoustic events, previously used only as a supplement to the speech, is also a part of experimentation. The experiment of examining the extending of the datasets by more fairly distributed data shows that it doesn't guarantee an improvement. And finally, the last experiment demonstrates that the network indeed succeeded in learning how to predict voice activity in both clean and noisy data.

More and more attention of scientists and artists is paid to the effect of sound to human and ecosystems. Due to technology development and growing urgency of human impact new approaches are being formed. This thesis is based on concepts of acoustics ecology by R. M. Schafer. In addition to noise mapping, Czech geographical research does not reflect the growing urgency of sound environment issues. In this thesis I present terminology, concepts and some methods which are used in acoustic ecology or soundscape ecology. A literature search shows the application of these terminology, concepts and methods in a geographical research, specifically in urban and landscape planning, geography of tourism, leisure, health geography or landscape ecology. In an empirical part I followed a pioneering idea of acoustic landscape typology. I used qualitative research, listening walk and narrative conversation, to obtain data about soundscapes. Through these data I critically evaluated and compared acoustic typology of landscape by Hendrych and Hynek (2008). I used recording of soundscapes and spectrograms as secondary methods. Recordings and spectrograms are availabled in ArcGIS Online application. I found out the typology according to Hendrych and Hynek appropriately describes soundscapes from the perspective of...