Effizientes binaurales Rendering von virtuellen akustischen Realitäten : technische und wahrnehmungsbezogene Konzepte

Binaural rendering aims to immerse the listener in a virtual acoustic scene, making it an essential method for spatial audio reproduction in virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) applications. The growing interest and research in VR/AR solutions yielded many different methods for the binaural rendering of virtual acoustic realities, yet all of them share the fundamental idea that the auditory experience of any sound field can be reproduced by reconstructing its sound pressure at the listener's eardrums. This thesis addresses various state-of-the-art methods for 3 or 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) binaural rendering, technical approaches applied in the context of headphone-based virtual acoustic realities, and recent technical and psychoacoustic research questions in the field of binaural technology. The publications collected in this dissertation focus on technical or perceptual concepts and methods for efficient binaural rendering, which has become increasingly important in research and development due to the rising popularity of mobile consumer VR/AR devices and applications. The thesis is organized into five research topics: Head-Related Transfer Function Processing and Interpolation, Parametric Spatial Audio, Auditory Distance Perception of Nearby Sound Sources, Binaural Rendering of Spherical Microphone Array Data, and Voice Directivity. The results of the studies included in this dissertation extend the current state of research in the respective research topic, answer specific psychoacoustic research questions and thereby yield a better understanding of basic spatial hearing processes, and provide concepts, methods, and design parameters for the future implementation of technically and perceptually efficient binaural rendering.Binaurales Rendering zielt darauf ab, dass der Hörer in eine virtuelle akustische Szene eintaucht, und ist somit eine wesentliche Methode für die räumliche Audiowiedergabe in Anwendungen der virtuellen Realität (VR) oder der erweiterten Realität (AR – aus dem Englischen Augmented Reality). Das wachsende Interesse und die zunehmende Forschung an VR/AR-Lösungen führte zu vielen verschiedenen Methoden für das binaurale Rendering virtueller akustischer Realitäten, die jedoch alle die grundlegende Idee teilen, dass das Hörerlebnis eines beliebigen Schallfeldes durch die Rekonstruktion seines Schalldrucks am Trommelfell des Hörers reproduziert werden kann. Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit verschiedenen modernsten Methoden zur binauralen Wiedergabe mit 3 oder 6 Freiheitsgraden (DoF – aus dem Englischen Degree of Freedom), mit technischen Ansätzen, die im Kontext kopfhörerbasierter virtueller akustischer Realitäten angewandt werden, und mit aktuellen technischen und psychoakustischen Forschungsfragen auf dem Gebiet der Binauraltechnik. Die in dieser Dissertation gesammelten Publikationen befassen sich mit technischen oder wahrnehmungsbezogenen Konzepten und Methoden für effizientes binaurales Rendering, was in der Forschung und Entwicklung aufgrund der zunehmenden Beliebtheit von mobilen Verbraucher-VR/AR-Geräten und -Anwendungen zunehmend an Relevanz gewonnen hat. Die Arbeit ist in fünf Forschungsthemen gegliedert: Verarbeitung und Interpolation von Außenohrübertragungsfunktionen, parametrisches räumliches Audio, auditive Entfernungswahrnehmung ohrnaher Schallquellen, binaurales Rendering von sphärischen Mikrofonarraydaten und Richtcharakteristik der Stimme. Die Ergebnisse der in dieser Dissertation enthaltenen Studien erweitern den aktuellen Forschungsstand im jeweiligen Forschungsfeld, beantworten spezifische psychoakustische Forschungsfragen und führen damit zu einem besseren Verständnis grundlegender räumlicher Hörprozesse, und liefern Konzepte, Methoden und Gestaltungsparameter für die zukünftige Umsetzung eines technisch und wahrnehmungsbezogen effizienten binauralen Renderings.BMBF, 03FH014IX5, Natürliche raumbezogene Darbietung selbsterzeugter Schallereignisse in virtuellen auditiven Umgebungen (NarDasS

Improving data preparation for the application of process mining

Immersed in what is already known as the fourth industrial revolution, automation and data exchange are taking on a particularly relevant role in complex environments, such as industrial manufacturing environments or logistics. This digitisation and transition to the Industry 4.0 paradigm is causing experts to start analysing business processes from other perspectives. Consequently, where management and business intelligence used to dominate, process mining appears as a link, trying to build a bridge between both disciplines to unite and improve them. This new perspective on process analysis helps to improve strategic decision making and competitive capabilities. Process mining brings together data and process perspectives in a single discipline that covers the entire spectrum of process management. Through process mining, and based on observations of their actual operations, organisations can understand the state of their operations, detect deviations, and improve their performance based on what they observe. In this way, process mining is an ally, occupying a large part of current academic and industrial research. However, although this discipline is receiving more and more attention, it presents severe application problems when it is implemented in real environments. The variety of input data in terms of form, content, semantics, and levels of abstraction makes the execution of process mining tasks in industry an iterative, tedious, and manual process, requiring multidisciplinary experts with extensive knowledge of the domain, process management, and data processing. Currently, although there are numerous academic proposals, there are no industrial solutions capable of automating these tasks. For this reason, in this thesis by compendium we address the problem of improving business processes in complex environments thanks to the study of the state-of-the-art and a set of proposals that improve relevant aspects in the life cycle of processes, from the creation of logs, log preparation, process quality assessment, and improvement of business processes. Firstly, for this thesis, a systematic study of the literature was carried out in order to gain an in-depth knowledge of the state-of-the-art in this field, as well as the different challenges faced by this discipline. This in-depth analysis has allowed us to detect a number of challenges that have not been addressed or received insufficient attention, of which three have been selected and presented as the objectives of this thesis. The first challenge is related to the assessment of the quality of input data, known as event logs, since the requeriment of the application of techniques for improving the event log must be based on the level of quality of the initial data, which is why this thesis presents a methodology and a set of metrics that support the expert in selecting which technique to apply to the data according to the quality estimation at each moment, another challenge obtained as a result of our analysis of the literature. Likewise, the use of a set of metrics to evaluate the quality of the resulting process models is also proposed, with the aim of assessing whether improvement in the quality of the input data has a direct impact on the final results. The second challenge identified is the need to improve the input data used in the analysis of business processes. As in any data-driven discipline, the quality of the results strongly depends on the quality of the input data, so the second challenge to be addressed is the improvement of the preparation of event logs. The contribution in this area is the application of natural language processing techniques to relabel activities from textual descriptions of process activities, as well as the application of clustering techniques to help simplify the results, generating more understandable models from a human point of view. Finally, the third challenge detected is related to the process optimisation, so we contribute with an approach for the optimisation of resources associated with business processes, which, through the inclusion of decision-making in the creation of flexible processes, enables significant cost reductions. Furthermore, all the proposals made in this thesis are validated and designed in collaboration with experts from different fields of industry and have been evaluated through real case studies in public and private projects in collaboration with the aeronautical industry and the logistics sector

Feature Papers of Drones - Volume I

[EN] The present book is divided into two volumes (Volume I: articles 1–23, and Volume II: articles 24–54) which compile the articles and communications submitted to the Topical Collection ”Feature Papers of Drones” during the years 2020 to 2022 describing novel or new cutting-edge designs, developments, and/or applications of unmanned vehicles (drones). Articles 1–8 are devoted to the developments of drone design, where new concepts and modeling strategies as well as effective designs that improve drone stability and autonomy are introduced. Articles 9–16 focus on the communication aspects of drones as effective strategies for smooth deployment and efficient functioning are required. Therefore, several developments that aim to optimize performance and security are presented. In this regard, one of the most directly related topics is drone swarms, not only in terms of communication but also human-swarm interaction and their applications for science missions, surveillance, and disaster rescue operations. To conclude with the volume I related to drone improvements, articles 17–23 discusses the advancements associated with autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, and enhanced flight plannin

Dependable Embedded Systems

This Open Access book introduces readers to many new techniques for enhancing and optimizing reliability in embedded systems, which have emerged particularly within the last five years. This book introduces the most prominent reliability concerns from today’s points of view and roughly recapitulates the progress in the community so far. Unlike other books that focus on a single abstraction level such circuit level or system level alone, the focus of this book is to deal with the different reliability challenges across different levels starting from the physical level all the way to the system level (cross-layer approaches). The book aims at demonstrating how new hardware/software co-design solution can be proposed to ef-fectively mitigate reliability degradation such as transistor aging, processor variation, temperature effects, soft errors, etc. Provides readers with latest insights into novel, cross-layer methods and models with respect to dependability of embedded systems; Describes cross-layer approaches that can leverage reliability through techniques that are pro-actively designed with respect to techniques at other layers; Explains run-time adaptation and concepts/means of self-organization, in order to achieve error resiliency in complex, future many core systems

Front-Line Physicians' Satisfaction with Information Systems in Hospitals

Day-to-day operations management in hospital units is difficult due to continuously varying situations, several actors involved and a vast number of information systems in use. The aim of this study was to describe front-line physicians' satisfaction with existing information systems needed to support the day-to-day operations management in hospitals. A cross-sectional survey was used and data chosen with stratified random sampling were collected in nine hospitals. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The response rate was 65 % (n = 111). The physicians reported that information systems support their decision making to some extent, but they do not improve access to information nor are they tailored for physicians. The respondents also reported that they need to use several information systems to support decision making and that they would prefer one information system to access important information. Improved information access would better support physicians' decision making and has the potential to improve the quality of decisions and speed up the decision making process.Peer reviewe

Reviews and Perspectives on Smart and Sustainable Metropolitan and Regional Cities

The notion of smart and sustainable cities offers an integrated and holistic approach to urbanism by aiming to achieve the long-term goals of urban sustainability and resilience. In essence, a smart and sustainable city is an urban locality that functions as a robust system of systems with sustainable practices to generate desired outcomes and futures for all humans and non-humans. This book contributes to improving research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism by bringing together literature reviews and scholarly perspective pieces, forming an open access knowledge warehouse. It contains contributions that offer insights into research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan and regional cities by producing in-depth conceptual debates and perspectives, insights from the literature and best practice, and thoroughly identified research themes and development trends. This book serves as a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address challenges in establishing smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism in the era of climate change, biodiversity collapse, natural disasters, pandemics, and socioeconomic inequalities

Adult Learning Sign Language by combining video, interactivity and play

One in every six persons in the UK suffers a hearing loss, either as a condition they have been born with or a disorder they acquired during their life. 900,000 people in the UK are severely or profoundly deaf and based on a study by Action On Hearing Loss UK in 2013 only 17 percent of this population, can use the British Sign Language (BSL). That leaves a massive proportion of people with a hearing impediment who do not use sign language struggling in social interaction and suffering from emotional distress, and an even larger proportion of Hearing people who cannot communicate with those of the deaf community. This paper presents a theoretical framework for the design of interactive games to support learning BSL supporting the entire learning cycle, instruction, practice and assessment. It then describes the proposed design of a game based on this framework aiming to close the communication gap between able hearing people and people with a hearing impediment, by providing a tool that facilitates BSL learning targeting adult population. The paper concludes with the planning of a large scale study and directions for further development of this educational resource

Co-Konfiguration von Hardware- und Systemsoftware-Produktlinien

Hardwarearchitekturen im Kontext von Eingebetteten Systemen werden immer komplexer und bewegen sich zukünftig immer häufiger in Richtung von Multi- oder Manycore-Systemen. Damit diese Systeme ihre optimale Leistungsfähigkeit – für die oftmals speziellen Aufgaben im Kontext von Eingebetteten Systemen – ausspielen können, beschäftigen sich ganze Forschungszweige mit der anwendungsspezifischen Maßschneiderung dieser Systeme. Insbesondere die Popularität von Hardwarebeschreibungssprachen trägt dazu ihren Teil bei. Jedoch ist die Entwicklung von solchen Systemen, selbst bei der Verwendung von Hardwarebeschreibungssprachen und der damit verbundenen höheren Abstraktionsebene, aufwendig und fehleranfällig. Die Verwendung von Hardwarebeschreibungssprachen lässt allerdings die Grenze zwischen Hard- und Software verschwimmen, denn Hardware kann nun – ähnlich wie auch Software – in textueller Form beschrieben werden. Dies eröffnet Möglichkeiten zur Übertragung von Konzepten aus der Software- auf die Hardwareentwicklung. Ein Konzept um der wachsenden Komplexität im Bereich der Softwareentwicklung zu begegnen, ist die organisierte Wiederverwendung von Komponenten, wie sie in der Produktlinienentwicklung zum Einsatz kommt. Inwieweit sich Produktlinienkonzepte auf Hardwarearchitekturen übertragen lassen und wie Hardware-Produktlinien entworfen werden können, soll in dieser Arbeit detailliert untersucht werden. Die Vorteile der Produktlinientechniken, wie die Möglichkeit zur Wiederverwendung von erprobten und zuverlässigen Komponenten, könnten so auch für Hardwarearchitekturen genutzt werden, um die Entwicklungskomplexität zu reduzieren und so mit erheblich geringerem Aufwand spezifische Hardwarearchitekturen entwickeln zu können. Zudem kann durch die gemeinsame Codebasis einer Produktlinie eine schnellere Markteinführungszeit unter geringeren Entwicklungskosten realisiert werden. Auf Basis dieser neuen Konzepte beschäftigt sich diese Arbeit zudem mit der Fragestellung, wie zukünftig solche parallelen Systeme programmiert und automatisiert optimiert werden können, um den Entwickler von der Anwendung über die Systemsoftware bis hin zur Hardware mit einer automatisierten Werkzeugkette bei der Umsetzung zu unterstützen. Im Fokus stehen dabei die in dieser Arbeit entworfenen Techniken zur durchgängigen Konfigurierung von Hardware und Systemsoftware. Diese Techniken beruhen im Wesentlichen auf den Programmierschnittstellen zwischen den Schichten, deren Zugriffsmuster sich statisch analysieren lassen. Die so gewonnenen Konfigurationsinformationen lassen sich dann zur automatisierten Maßschneiderung der Systemsoftware- und Hardware-Produktlinie für ein spezifisches Anwendungsszenario nutzen. Die anwendungsspezifische Optimierung der Systeme wird in dieser Arbeit mittels einer Entwurfsraumexploration durchgeführt. Der Fokus der Entwurfsraumexploration liegt allerdings nicht allein auf der Hardwarearchitektur, sondern umfasst ebenso die Softwareebene. Denn neben der Maßschneiderung der Systemsoftware, wird auch die auf einer parallelen Programmierschnittstelle aufsetzende Anwendung innerhalb der Entwurfsraumexploration automatisch skaliert, um die Leistungsfähigkeit von Manycore-Systemen ausschöpfen zu können