Watch-grab-arrange-see : thinking with motion images via streams and collages

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1993.Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-105).by Edward Lee Elliott.M.S.V.S

Digital Watermarking for Verification of Perception-based Integrity of Audio Data

In certain application fields digital audio recordings contain sensitive content. Examples are historical archival material in public archives that preserve our cultural heritage, or digital evidence in the context of law enforcement and civil proceedings. Because of the powerful capabilities of modern editing tools for multimedia such material is vulnerable to doctoring of the content and forgery of its origin with malicious intent. Also inadvertent data modification and mistaken origin can be caused by human error. Hence, the credibility and provenience in terms of an unadulterated and genuine state of such audio content and the confidence about its origin are critical factors. To address this issue, this PhD thesis proposes a mechanism for verifying the integrity and authenticity of digital sound recordings. It is designed and implemented to be insensitive to common post-processing operations of the audio data that influence the subjective acoustic perception only marginally (if at all). Examples of such operations include lossy compression that maintains a high sound quality of the audio media, or lossless format conversions. It is the objective to avoid de facto false alarms that would be expectedly observable in standard crypto-based authentication protocols in the presence of these legitimate post-processing. For achieving this, a feasible combination of the techniques of digital watermarking and audio-specific hashing is investigated. At first, a suitable secret-key dependent audio hashing algorithm is developed. It incorporates and enhances so-called audio fingerprinting technology from the state of the art in contentbased audio identification. The presented algorithm (denoted as ”rMAC” message authentication code) allows ”perception-based” verification of integrity. This means classifying integrity breaches as such not before they become audible. As another objective, this rMAC is embedded and stored silently inside the audio media by means of audio watermarking technology. This approach allows maintaining the authentication code across the above-mentioned admissible post-processing operations and making it available for integrity verification at a later date. For this, an existent secret-key ependent audio watermarking algorithm is used and enhanced in this thesis work. To some extent, the dependency of the rMAC and of the watermarking processing from a secret key also allows authenticating the origin of a protected audio. To elaborate on this security aspect, this work also estimates the brute-force efforts of an adversary attacking this combined rMAC-watermarking approach. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides a good distinction and classification performance of authentic versus doctored audio content. It also allows the temporal localization of audible data modification within a protected audio file. The experimental evaluation finally provides recommendations about technical configuration settings of the combined watermarking-hashing approach. Beyond the main topic of perception-based data integrity and data authenticity for audio, this PhD work provides new general findings in the fields of audio fingerprinting and digital watermarking. The main contributions of this PhD were published and presented mainly at conferences about multimedia security. These publications were cited by a number of other authors and hence had some impact on their works

Signal Processing in Space and Time:A Multidimensional Fourier Approach

Sound waves propagate through space and time by transference of energy between the particles in the medium, which vibrate according to the oscillation patterns of the waves. These vibrations can be captured by a microphone and translated into a digital signal, representing the amplitude of the sound pressure as a function of time. The signal obtained by the microphone characterizes the time-domain behavior of the acoustic wave field, but has no information related to the spatial domain. The spatial information can be obtained by measuring the vibrations with an array of microphones distributed at multiple locations in space. This allows the amplitude of the sound pressure to be represented not only as a function of time but also as a function of space. The use of microphone arrays creates a new class of signals that is somewhat unfamiliar to Fourier analysis. Current paradigms try to circumvent the problem by treating the microphone signals as multiple "cooperating" signals, and applying the Fourier analysis to each signal individually. Conceptually, however, this is not faithful to the mathematics of the wave equation, which expresses the acoustic wave field as a single function of space and time, and not as multiple functions of time. The goal of this thesis is to provide a formulation of Fourier theory that treats the wave field as a single function of space and time, and allows it to be processed as a multidimensional signal using the theory of digital signal processing (DSP). We base this on a physical principle known as the Huygens principle, which essentially says that the wave field can be sampled at the surface of a given region in space and subsequently reconstructed in the same region, using only the samples obtained at the surface. To translate this into DSP language, we show that the Huygens principle can be expressed as a linear system that is both space- and time-invariant, and can be formulated as a convolution operation. If the input signal is transformed into the spatio-temporal Fourier domain, the system can also be analyzed according to its frequency response. In the first half of the thesis, we derive theoretical results that express the 4-D Fourier transform of the wave field as a function of the parameters of the scene, such as the number of sources and their locations, the source signals, and the geometry of the microphone array. We also show that the wave field can be effectively analyzed on a small scale using what we call the space/time-frequency representation space, consisting of a Gabor representation across the spatio-temporal manifold defined by the microphone array. These results are obtained by treating the signals as continuous functions of space and time. The second half of the thesis is dedicated to processing the wave field in discrete space and time, using Nyquist sampling theory and multidimensional filter banks theory. In particular, we show examples of orthogonal filter banks that effectively represent the wave field in terms of its elementary components while satisfying the requirements of critical sampling and perfect reconstruction of the input. We discuss the architecture of such filter banks, and demonstrate their applicability in the context of real applications, such as spatial filtering and wave field coding

Culturally sensitive strategies for automatic music prediction

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-112).Music has been shown to form an essential part of the human experience-every known society engages in music. However, as universal as it may be, music has evolved into a variety of genres, peculiar to particular cultures. In fact people acquire musical skill, understanding, and appreciation specific to the music they have been exposed to. This process of enculturation builds mental structures that form the cognitive basis for musical expectation. In this thesis I argue that in order for machines to perform musical tasks like humans do, in particular to predict music, they need to be subjected to a similar enculturation process by design. This work is grounded in an information theoretic framework that takes cultural context into account. I introduce a measure of musical entropy to analyze the predictability of musical events as a function of prior musical exposure. Then I discuss computational models for music representation that are informed by genre-specific containers for musical elements like notes. Finally I propose a software framework for automatic music prediction. The system extracts a lexicon of melodic, or timbral, and rhythmic primitives from audio, and generates a hierarchical grammar to represent the structure of a particular musical form. To improve prediction accuracy, context can be switched with cultural plug-ins that are designed for specific musical instruments and genres. In listening experiments involving music synthesis a culture-specific design fares significantly better than a culture-agnostic one. Hence my findings support the importance of computational enculturation for automatic music prediction. Furthermore I suggest that in order to sustain and cultivate the diversity of musical traditions around the world it is indispensable that we design culturally sensitive music technology.by Mihir Sarkar.Ph.D

Privacy-preserving energy management techniques and delay-sensitive transmission strategies for smart grids

The smart grid (SG) is the enhancement of the traditional electricity grid that allows bidirectional flow of electricity and information through the integration of advanced monitoring, communication and control technologies. In this thesis, we focus on important design problems affecting particularly two critical enabling components of the SG infrastructure : smart meters (SMs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs). SMs measure the energy consumption of the users and transmit their readings to the utility provider in almost real-time. SM readings enable real-time optimization of load management. However, possible misuse of SM readings raises serious privacy concerns for the users. The challenge is thus to design techniques that can increase the privacy of the users while maintaining the monitoring capabilities SMs provide. Demand-side energy management (EM), achieved thanks to the utilization of storage units and alternative energy sources, has emerged as a potential technique to tackle this challenge. WSNs consist of a large number of low power sensors, which monitor physical parameters and transmit their measurements to control centers (CCs) over wireless links. CCs utilize these measurements to reconstruct the system state. For the reliable management of the SG, near real-time and accurate reconstruction of the system state at the CC is crucial. Thus, low complexity delay-constrained transmission strategies, which enable sensors to accurately transmit their measurements to CCs, should be investigated rigorously. To address these challenges, this dissertation investigates and designs privacy-preserving EM techniques for SMs and delay-constrained transmission strategies for WSNs. The proposed EM techniques provide privacy to SM users while maintaining the operational benefits SMs provide. On the other hand, the proposed transmission strategies enable WSNs to meet low latency transmission requirements, which in turn, facilitate real-time and accurate state reconstruction; and hence, the efficient and robust management of the SG. First, we consider an SM system with energy harvesting and storage units. Representing the system with a discrete-time finite state model, we study stochastic EM policies from a privacy-energy efficiency trade-off perspective, where privacy is measured by information leakage rate and energy efficiency is measured by wasted energy rate. We propose EM policies that take stochastic output load decisions based on the harvested energy, the input load and the state of the battery. For the proposed policies, we characterize the fundamental trade-off between user's privacy and energy efficiency. Second, we consider an SM system with a storage unit. Considering a discrete-time power consumption and pricing model, we study EM policies from a privacy-cost trade-off perspective, where privacy is measured by the load variance as well as mutual information. Assuming non-causal knowledge of the power demand profile and prices, we characterize the optimal EM policy based on the solution of an optimization problem. Then, assuming that the power demand profile is known only causally, we obtain the optimal EM policy based on dynamic programming, and also propose a low complexity heuristic policy. For the proposed policies, we characterize the trade-off between user's privacy and energy cost. Finally, we study the delay-constrained linear transmission (LT) of composite Gaussian measurements from a sensor to a CC over a point-to-point fading channel. Assuming that the channel state information (CSI) is known by both the encoder and decoder, we propose the optimal LT strategy in terms of the average mean-square error (MSE) distortion under a strict delay constraint, and two LT strategies under general delay constraints. Assuming that the CSI is known only by the decoder, we propose the optimal LT strategy in terms of the average MSE distortion under a strict delay constraint.La red de energía inteligente (SG) es la mejora de la red eléctrica tradicional. En esta tesis, nos enfocamos en las problemáticas asociadas al diseño de dos de los componentes más críticos de la infraestructura de la SG : los medidores inteligentes (SMs) y las redes de sensores inalámbricos (WSNs). Los SMs miden el consumo de energía de los usuarios y transmiten sus medidas al proveedor de servicio casi en tiempo real. Las medidas de SM permiten la optimización en tiempo real de la gestión de carga en la red. Sin embargo, el posible mal uso de estas medidas plantea preocupaciones graves en cuanto a la privacidad de los usuarios. El desafío es, por lo tanto, diseñar técnicas que puedan aumentar la privacidad de los usuarios manteniendo las capacidades de supervisión que proveen los SMs. Una solución tecnológica es el diseño de sistemas de gestión de energía (EM) inteligentes compuestos por dispositivos de almacenamiento y generación alternativa de energía. Las WSNs se componen de un gran número de sensores, que miden parámetros físicos y transmiten sus mediciones a los centros de control (CCs) mediante enlaces inalámbricos. Los CCs utilizan estas mediciones para estimar el estado del sistema. Para una gestión fiable de la SG, una buena reconstrucción del estado del sistema en tiempo real es crucial. Por ello, es preciso investigar estrategias de transmisión con estrictos requisitos de complejidad y limitaciones de latencia. Para afrontar estos desafíos, esta tesis investiga y diseña técnicas de EM para preservar la privacidad de los usuarios de SM y estrategias de transmisión para WSNs con limitaciones de latencia. Las técnicas de EM propuestas proporcionan privacidad a los consumidores de energía manteniendo los beneficios operacionales para la SG. Las estrategias de transmisión propuestas permiten a las WSNs satisfacer los requisitos de baja latencia necesarios para la reconstrucción precisa del estado en tiempo real; y por lo tanto, la gestión eficiente y robusta de la SG. En primer lugar, consideramos el diseño de un sistema de SM con una unidad de almacenamiento y generación de energía renovable. Representando el sistema con un modelo de estados finitos y de tiempo discreto, proponemos políticas estocásticas de EM. Para las políticas propuestas, caracterizamos la relación fundamental existente entre la privacidad y la eficiencia de energía del usuario, donde la privacidad se mide mediante la tasa de fuga de información y la eficiencia de energía se mide mediante la tasa de energía perdida. En segundo lugar, consideramos el diseño de un sistema de SM con una unidad de almacenamiento. Considerando un modelo de tiempo discreto, estudiamos la relación existente entre la privacidad y el coste de la energía, donde la privacidad se mide por la variación de la carga, así como la información mutua. Suponiendo que el perfil de la demanda de energía y los precios son conocidos de antemano, caracterizamos la política de EM óptima. Suponiendo que la demanda de energía es conocida sólo para el tiempo actual, obtenemos la política de EM óptima mediante programación dinámica, y proponemos una política heurística de baja complejidad. Para las políticas propuestas, caracterizamos la relación existente entre la privacidad y el coste de energía del usuario. Finalmente, consideramos el diseño de estrategias de transmisión lineal (LT) de mediciones Gaussianas compuestas desde un sensor a un CC sobre un canal punto a punto con desvanecimientos. Suponiendo que la información del estado del canal (CSI) es conocida tanto por el trasmisor como por el receptor, proponemos la estrategia de LT óptima en términos de la distorsión de error cuadrático medio (MSE) bajo una restricción de latencia estricta y dos estrategias de LT para restricciones de latencia arbitrarias. Suponiendo que la CSI es conocida sólo en el receptor, proponemos la estrategia de LT óptima en términos de la distorsión de MSE bajo una restricción de latencia estricta.La xarxa d'energia intel·ligent (SG) és la millora de la xarxa elèctrica tradicional. En aquesta tesi, ens enfoquem en les problemàtiques associades al disseny de dos dels components més crítics de la infraestructura de la SG : els mesuradors de consum intel·ligents(SMs) i les xarxes de sensors sense fils (WSNs).Els SMs mesuren el consum d'energia dels usuaris i transmeten les seves mesures al proveïdor de servei gairebé en temps real. Les mesures de SM permeten l'optimització en temps real de la gestió de càrrega a la xarxa. No obstant això, el possible mal ús d'aquestes mesures planteja preocupacions greus en quant a la privacitat dels usuaris. El desafiament és, per tant, dissenyar tècniques que puguin augmentar la privadesa dels usuaris mantenint les capacitats de supervisió que proveeixen els SMs. Una solució tecnològica és el disseny de sistemes de gestió d'energia (EM) intel·ligents compostos per dispositius d'emmagatzematge i generació alternativa d'energia.Les WSNs es componen d'un gran nombre de sensors, que mesuren paràmetres físics i transmeten les seves mesures als centres de control (CCs) mitjançant enllaços sense fils. Els CCs utilitzen aquestes mesures per estimar l'estat del sistema. Per a una gestió fiable de la SG, una bona reconstrucció de l'estat del sistema en temps real és crucial. Per això, cal investigar estratègies de transmissió amb estrictes requisits de complexitat i limitacions de latència. Per d'afrontar aquests desafiaments, aquesta tesi investiga i dissenya tècniques d'EM per preservar la privacitat dels usuaris de SM i estratègies de transmissió per WSNs amb limitacions de latència. Les tècniques d'EM propostes proporcionen privacitats als consumidors d'energia mantenint els beneficis operacionals per la SG. Les estratègies de transmissió proposades permeten a les WSNs satisfer els requisits de baixa latència necessaris per a la reconstrucció precisa de l'estat en temps real; i per tant, la gestió eficient i robusta de la SG.En primer lloc, considerem el disseny d'un sistema de SM amb una unitat d'emmagatzematge i generació d'energia renovable. Representant el sistema amb un model d'estats finits i de temps discret, proposem polítiques estocàstiques d'EM. Per a les polítiques propostes, caracteritzem la relació fonamental existent entre la privadesa i l'eficiència d'energia de l'usuari, on la privacitat es mesura mitjançant la taxa de fugida d'informació i l'eficiència d'energia es mesura mitjançant la taxa d'energia perduda.En segon lloc, considerem el disseny d'un sistema de SM amb una unitat d'emmagatzematge. Considerant un model de temps discret, estudiem la relació existent entre la privacitat el cost de l'energia, on la privacitat es mesura per la variació de la càrrega, així com mitjançant la informació mútua. Suposant que la corba de la demanda d'energia i els preus són coneguts per endavant, caracteritzem la política d'EM òptima. Suposant que la demanda d'energia és coneguda només per al temps actual, obtenim la política d'EM òptima mitjançant programació dinàmica, i proposem una política heurística de baixa complexitat. Per a les polítiques propostes, caracteritzem la relació existent entre la privacitat i el cost d'energia de l'usuari.Finalment, considerem el disseny d'estratègies de transmissió lineal (LT) de mesures Gaussianes compostes des d'un sensor a un CC sobre un canal punt a punt amb esvaïments. Suposant que la informació de l'estat del canal (CSI) és coneguda tant pel transmissor com pel receptor, proposem l'estratègia de LT òptima en termes de la distorsió d'error quadràtic mitjà (MSE) sota una restricció de latència estricta. A més, proposem dues estratègies de LT per a restriccions de latència arbitràries. Finalment, suposant que la CSI és coneguda només en el receptor, proposem l'estratègia de LT òptima en termes de la distorsió de MSE sota una restricció de latència estricta

Maximising Achievable Rates of Experimental Nonlinear Optical Fibre Transmission Systems

It is generally expected that the demand for digital data services will continue to grow, placing ever greater requirements on optical fibre networks which carry the bulk of digital data. Research to maximise achievable information rates (AIR) over fibre has led to increasing spectral efficiency, symbol rate and bandwidth use. All of these contribute to transmission impairments due to the nonlinear nature of the optical fibre. This thesis describes research performed to investigate the effects of nonlinear impair- ments on the AIRs of experimental optical fibre transmission. To maximise throughput, the entire available optical bandwidth should be filled with transmission channels. An investigation into large bandwidth transmission through the use of spectrally shaped amplified spontaneous emission noise (SS-ASE) was con- ducted. The enhanced Gaussian noise model is used to analytically describe this tech- nique, and SS-ASE was experimentally shown to provide a lower bound on the AIR. Nonlinear interference (NLI) was modelled from an inter-symbol interference (ISI) model to characterise the noise and was experimentally verified. This new understand- ing helps quantify potential gain available from nonlinearity mitigation. Multicore fibres offer an alternative route to improve AIR, and are susceptible to another noise source known as crosstalk. This inter-core crosstalk can be controlled by suitable design of the fibre, hence in the limiting case, NLI rather than crosstalk will limit AIR. Nonlinearity compensation was, for the first time, experimentally demon- strated in the presence of crosstalk in a homogeneous 7-core fibre and shown to provide an increase in AIR. The results of this thesis can be used to evaluate future transmission systems for maximising information rates. It was shown that experimentally, SS-ASE is a viable transmission tool to evaluate system performance, NLI can be characterised using an ISI model and nonlinearity mitigation is possible in MCF systems limited by crosstalk

The Piratical Ethos: Textual Activity and Intellectual Property in Digital Environments

The Piratical Ethos: Textual Activity and Intellectual Property in Digital Environments examines the definition, function, and application of intellectual property in contexts of electronically mediated social production. With a focus on immaterial production - or the forms of coordinated social activity employed to produce knowledge and information in the networked information economy - this project ultimately aims to demonstrate how current intellectual property paradigms must be rearticulated for an age of digital (re)production. By considering the themes of Piracy , Intellectual Property , and Distributed Social Production this dissertation provides an overview of the current state of peer production and intellectual property in the Humanities and Writing Studies. Next, this project develops and implements a communicational-mediational research methodology to theorize how both discursive and material data lend themselves to a more nuanced understanding of the ways that technologies of communication and coordination effect attitudes toward intellectual property. After establishing both a methodology and an interdisciplinary grounding for the themes of the work, this dissertation presents a grounded theoretic analysis of piratical discourse to reveal what I call the piratical ethos , or the guiding attitudes of individuals actively contesting intellectual property in piratical acts of distributed social production. Congruently, this work also investigates the material dynamics of piratical activity by analyzing the cultural-historical activity systems wherein piratical subjectivity emerges, emphasizing the agenic capacity of interfacial technologies at the scales of user and system. Exploring the attitudes of piratical subjects and the technological genres that mediate piratical activity, I contend that the conclusions drawn from The Piratical Ethos can assist Writing Studies researchers with developing novel methodologies to study the intersections of intellectual property and distributed social production in digital worlds