Fear Feedback Loop: Creative and Dynamic Fear Experiences Driven by User Emotion

This thesis examines whether it is possible to generate fear-eliciting media that custom fits to the user. The system described uses a genetic algorithm to produce images that get more scary through the generations in reaction to either physiological signals obtained from the user or a user-provided fear rating. The system was able to detect differing levels of fear using a regression trained on EEG and heart rate data gathered while users view clips from horror movies. It was also found to produce images with significantly higher fear ratings at the fifth generation as compared to the first generation. These higher scoring images were found to be unique between subjects

Computational Analysis and Generation of Slogans

I reklam används sloganer för att förbättra återkallandet av den annonserade produkten av konsumenter och skilja den från andra på marknaden. Att skapa effektiva slagord är en resurskrävande uppgift för människor. I denna avhandling beskriver vi en ny metod för att automatiskt generera sloganer, med tanke på ett målkoncept (t ex bil) och en adjektivsegenskap för att uttrycka (t ex elegant) som input. Dessutom föreslår vi en metod för att generera nominella metaforer med hjälp av en metafor-tolkningsmodell för att möjliggöra generering av metaforiska slagord. Metoden för att generera sloganer extraherar skelett från befintliga sloganer, så fyller det ett skelett med lämpliga ord genom att använda flera språkliga resurser (som ett förvar av grammatiska och semantiska relationer och språkmodeller) och genetiska algoritmer samtidigt som man optimerar flera mål såsom semantiska relateradhet, språkkorrigering och användning av retoriska enheter. Vi utvärderar metaforen och slogangenereringsmetoderna med hjälp av en tänktalkoplattform. På en 5-punkts Likert-skala ber vi online-domare att bedöma de genererade metaforerna tillsammans med tre andra metaforer som genererades med andra metoder och visa hur bra de kommunicerar den eftersökta betydelsen. Slogangenereringsmetoden utvärderas genom att be crowdsourced-domare att bedöma genererade sloganer från fem perspektiv, vilka är 1) hur bra är sloganet relaterat till ämnet, 2) hur korrekt är sloganets språk, 3) hur metaforiskt är sloganet, 4) hur engagerande, attraktivt och minnesvärt är det och 5) hur bra är sloganet överlag. Dessa frågor är utvalda för att undersöka effekterna av relateradhet till produkten och den markerade egenskapen, användningen av retoriska anordningar och språkets korrekthet på den övergripande uppskattningen av slogan. På samma sätt utvärderar vi befintliga sloganer som har skapats av äkta människor. Baserat på utvärderingarna analyserar vi metoden som helhet tillsammans med de enskilda optimeringsfunktionerna och ger insikter om befintliga sloganer. Resultaten från våra utvärderingar visar att vår metaforgeneringsmetod kan producera lämpliga metaforer. För slogangenereraren bevisar resultaten att metoden har varit framgångsrik i att producera minst en effektiv slogan för varje utvärderad input. Ändå finns det utrymme för att förbättra metoden, som diskuteras i slutet av avhandlingen

AN APPROACH TO MACHINE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL ONTOGENY

This Thesis pursues three main objectives: (i) to use computational modelling to explore how music is perceived, cognitively processed and created by human beings; (ii) to explore interactive musical systems as a method to model and achieve the transmission of musical influence in artificial worlds and between humans and machines; and (iii) to experiment with artificial and alternative developmental musical routes in order to observe the evolution of musical styles. In order to achieve these objectives, this Thesis introduces a new paradigm for the design of computer interactive musical systems called the Ontomemetical Model of Music Evolution - OMME, which includes the fields of musical ontogenesis and memetlcs. OMME-based systems are designed to artificially explore the evolution of music centred on human perceptive and cognitive faculties. The potential of the OMME is illustrated with two interactive musical systems, the Rhythmic Meme Generator (RGeme) and the Interactive Musical Environments (iMe). which have been tested in a series of laboratory experiments and live performances. The introduction to the OMME is preceded by an extensive and critical overview of the state of the art computer models that explore musical creativity and interactivity, in addition to a systematic exposition of the major issues involved in the design and implementation of these systems. This Thesis also proposes innovative solutions for (i) the representation of musical streams based on perceptive features, (ii) music segmentation, (iii) a memory-based music model, (iv) the measure of distance between musical styles, and (v) an impi*ovisation-based creative model

New horizons for female birdsong : evolution, culture and analysis tools : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ecology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Published papers appear in Appendix 7.1. and 7.2 respectively under a CC BY 4.0 and CC BY licence: Webb, W. H., Brunton, D. H., Aguirre, J. D., Thomas, D. B., Valcu, M., & Dale, J. (2016). Female song occurs in songbirds with more elaborate female coloration and reduced sexual dichromatism. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 4(22). https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2016.00022 Yukio Fukuzawa, Wesley Webb, Matthew Pawley, Michelle Roper, Stephen Marsland, Dianne Brunton, & Andrew Gilman. (2020). Koe: Web-based software to classify acoustic units and analyse sequence structure in animal vocalisations. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13336As a result of male-centric, northern-hemisphere-biased sexual selection theory, elaborate female traits in songbirds have been largely overlooked as unusual or non-functional by-products of male evolution. However, recent research has revealed that female song is present in most surveyed songbirds and was in fact the ancestral condition to the clade. Additionally, a high proportion of songbird species have colourful females, and both song and showy colours have demonstrated female-specific functions in a growing number of species. We have much to learn about the evolution and functions of elaborate female traits in general, and female song in particular. This thesis extends the horizons of female birdsong research in three ways: (1) by revealing the broad-scale evolutionary relationship of female song and plumage elaboration across the songbirds, (2) by developing new accessible tools for the measurement and analysis of song complexity, and (3) by showing—through a detailed field study on a large natural metapopulation—how vocal culture operates differentially in males and females. First, to understand the drivers of elaborate female traits, I tested the evolutionary relationship between female song presence and plumage colouration across the songbirds. I found strong support for a positive evolutionary correlation between traits, with female song more prevalent amongst species with elaborated female plumage. These results suggest that contrary to the idea of trade-off between showy traits, female plumage colouration and female song likely evolved together under similar selection pressures and that their respective functions are reinforcing. Second, I introduce new bioacoustics software, Koe, designed to meet the need for detailed classification and analysis of song complexity. The program enables visualisation, segmentation, rapid classification and analysis of song structure. I demonstrate Koe with a case study of New Zealand bellbird Anthornis melanura song, showcasing the capabilities for large-scale bioacoustics research and its application to female song. Third, I conducted one of the first detailed field-based analyses of female song culture, studying an archipelago metapopulation of New Zealand bellbirds. Comparing between male and female sectors of each population, I found equal syllable diversity, largely separate repertoires, and contrasting patterns of sharing between sites—revealing female dialects and pronounced sex differences in cultural evolution. By combining broad-scale evolutionary approaches, novel song analysis tools, and a detailed field study, this thesis demonstrates that female song can be as much an elaborate signal as male song. I describe how future work can build on these findings to expand understanding of elaborate female traits

Deep Learning for Distant Speech Recognition

Deep learning is an emerging technology that is considered one of the most promising directions for reaching higher levels of artificial intelligence. Among the other achievements, building computers that understand speech represents a crucial leap towards intelligent machines. Despite the great efforts of the past decades, however, a natural and robust human-machine speech interaction still appears to be out of reach, especially when users interact with a distant microphone in noisy and reverberant environments. The latter disturbances severely hamper the intelligibility of a speech signal, making Distant Speech Recognition (DSR) one of the major open challenges in the field. This thesis addresses the latter scenario and proposes some novel techniques, architectures, and algorithms to improve the robustness of distant-talking acoustic models. We first elaborate on methodologies for realistic data contamination, with a particular emphasis on DNN training with simulated data. We then investigate on approaches for better exploiting speech contexts, proposing some original methodologies for both feed-forward and recurrent neural networks. Lastly, inspired by the idea that cooperation across different DNNs could be the key for counteracting the harmful effects of noise and reverberation, we propose a novel deep learning paradigm called network of deep neural networks. The analysis of the original concepts were based on extensive experimental validations conducted on both real and simulated data, considering different corpora, microphone configurations, environments, noisy conditions, and ASR tasks.Comment: PhD Thesis Unitn, 201

Vector graphics to improve BLAST graphic representations

Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.BLAST reports can be complicated. Viewing them graphically helps to understand them better, especially when the reports are long. At present "Web BLAST" and the stand-alone "wwwBLAST" versions, distributed by the NCBI, include graph- ical viewers for BLAST results. An alternative approach is "BLAST Graphic Viewer" developed by GMOD as part of the BioPerl library. It provides a more aesthetically pleasing and informative graphical visualization to represent BLAST results. All the strategies mentioned above are based on the use of bitmap graph- ics and dependent on JavaScript code embedded in HTML. We present Vector Graphic BLAST (VEGRA) a Python object orientated library based on BioPy- thon to yield graphical visualization of results from BLAST utilizing vector graph- ics. Graphics produced by VEGRA are better than bitmaps for illustration, more exible because they can be resized and stretched, require less memory, and their interactivity is more e ective as it is independent of tertiary technologies due to its integration into the graphic. In addition, the library facilitates a de nition of any layout for the di erent components of the graphic, as well as adjustment of size and colour properties. This dissertation studies previous alternatives and improves them by making use of vector graphics and thus allowing more e ective presentation of results. VEGRA is not just an improvement for BLAST visualiza- tion but a model that illustrates how other visualization tools could make use of vector graphics. VEGRA currently works with BLAST, nevertheless the library has been written to be extended to other visualization problems

Proceedings of the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the SMC2010 - 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference, July 21st - July 24th 2010

Automated validation of minimum risk model-based system designs of complex avionics systems

Today, large civil aircraft incorporate a vast array of complex and coupled subsystems with thousands of electronic control units and software with millions of lines of code. Aircraft suppliers are challenged to provide superior products that are developed at a minimum time and cost, with maximum safety and security. No single person can understand the complex interactions of such a system of systems. Finding an optimal solution from large sets of different possible designs is an impossible task if done manually. Thus, written, non-executable specifications carry a high degree of product uncertainty. As a result, more than two-thirds of all specifications need to be reworked. Since most specification flaws are discovered and resolved at a late stage during development, when expenditures for redesign are at a maximum, the development approach currently used has a high probability of project cost and time overruns or even project failure, thus maximizing the risk of development. It is the aim of this work, to develop a model- and simulation-based systems engineering method with associated design and validation environment that minimizes the risk of development for complex systems, e.g. aircraft. The development risk is a minimum, if all development decisions are validated early against the services of a product at mission level by the final customer. To do so, executable specifications are created during design and validated against the requirements of system services at mission level. Validated executable specifications are used and updated for all decisions from concept development through implementation and training. In addition, virtual prototypes are developed. A virtual prototype is an executable system specification that is combined with human machine interface concept models to include usability requirements in the overall design and to enable interactive specification validation and early end user training by means of interactive user-driven system simulation. In a first step, so called executable workflows and simulation sets are developed to enable the execution of sets of structured and coupled simulation models. In a second step, a model- and simulation-based development and validation process model is developed from concept design to specification development. In a final step, two different validation processes are developed. An automated validation process based on executable specifications and an interactive validation process based on virtual prototypes. For the development of executable specifications and virtual prototypes, plug-and-play capable model components are developed. The developed method is validated for examples from civil aircraft development with focus on avionics and highly configurable and customizable cabin systems.Große zivile Flugzeuge umfassen eine hohe Anzahl von komplexen und gekoppelten Subsystemen mit Tausenden von elektronischen Steuergeräten und Software mit Millionen von Codezeilen. Keine einzelne Person kann die komplexen Wechselwirkungen eines solchen Systems von Systemen verstehen. Daher beinhalten geschriebene, nicht ausführbare Spezifikationen einen hohen Grad an Produktunsicherheit. Infolgedessen müssen mehr als zwei Drittel aller Spezifikationen überarbeitet werden. Da die meisten Spezifikationsfehler zu einem späten Zeitpunkt entdeckt und gelöst werden, wenn Aufwände für Überarbeitungen maximal sind, hat der gegenwärtige Entwicklungsansatz eine hohe Wahrscheinlichkeit für Kosten- und Zeitüberschreitungen oder führt zum Fehlschlagen von Projekten. Hierdurch wird das Entwicklungsrisiko maximiert. Es ist das Ziel dieser Arbeit, eine modell- und simulationsbasierte Entwicklungsmethode mit zugehöriger Entwurfs- und Validierungsumgebung zu entwickeln, welche das Risiko der Entwicklung für komplexe Systeme minimiert. Das Entwicklungsrisiko ist minimal, wenn alle Entwicklungsentscheidungen frühzeitig vom Endkunden gegen die Leistungen eines Produktes auf Missionsebene validiert werden. Dazu werden ausführbare Spezifikationen während des Entwurfs erstellt und anhand der Anforderungen auf Missionsebene validiert. Validierte ausführbare Spezifikationen werden für alle Entscheidungen von der Konzeptentwicklung bis zur Implementierung verwendet und aktualisiert. Darüber hinaus werden virtuelle Prototypen entwickelt, welche ausführbare Spezifikationen mit Konzeptmodellen für Mensch-Maschine-Schnittstellen kombinieren, um Usability-Anforderungen in den Gesamtentwurf aufzunehmen. Dies ermöglicht eine interaktive Validierung sowie frühes Endbenutzertraining mittels benutzergesteuerter Systemsimulation. Es werden ausführbare Arbeitsabläufe und Simulation Sets entwickelt, welche die Ausführung von strukturierten und gekoppelten Simulationsmodellen ermöglichen. Anschließend wird ein modell- und simulationsbasiertes Entwicklungs- und Validierungsprozessmodell vom Konzeptdesign bis zur Spezifikationsentwicklung entwickelt. Hierfür werden zwei verschiedene Validierungsprozesse verwendet. Ein automatisierter Validierungsprozess basierend auf ausführbaren Spezifikationen und ein interaktiver Validierungsprozess basierend auf virtuellen Prototypen. Für die Entwicklung von ausführbaren Spezifikationen und virtuellen Prototypen werden Modellkomponenten entwickelt. Die entwickelte Methode wird mithilfe von Beispielen aus der zivilen Flugzeugentwicklung validiert, insbesondere in Hinblick auf Avionik sowie hoch konfigurierbare und anpassbare Kabinensysteme