2,224 research outputs found
Wavelet-based voice morphing
This paper presents a new multi-scale voice morphing algorithm. This algorithm enables a user to transform one person's speech pattern into another person's pattern with distinct characteristics, giving it a new identity, while preserving the original content. The voice morphing algorithm performs the morphing at different subbands by using the theory of wavelets and models the spectral conversion using the theory of Radial Basis Function Neural Networks. The results obtained on the TIMIT speech database demonstrate effective transformation of the speaker identity
Multiscale Discriminant Saliency for Visual Attention
The bottom-up saliency, an early stage of humans' visual attention, can be
considered as a binary classification problem between center and surround
classes. Discriminant power of features for the classification is measured as
mutual information between features and two classes distribution. The estimated
discrepancy of two feature classes very much depends on considered scale
levels; then, multi-scale structure and discriminant power are integrated by
employing discrete wavelet features and Hidden markov tree (HMT). With wavelet
coefficients and Hidden Markov Tree parameters, quad-tree like label structures
are constructed and utilized in maximum a posterior probability (MAP) of hidden
class variables at corresponding dyadic sub-squares. Then, saliency value for
each dyadic square at each scale level is computed with discriminant power
principle and the MAP. Finally, across multiple scales is integrated the final
saliency map by an information maximization rule. Both standard quantitative
tools such as NSS, LCC, AUC and qualitative assessments are used for evaluating
the proposed multiscale discriminant saliency method (MDIS) against the
well-know information-based saliency method AIM on its Bruce Database wity
eye-tracking data. Simulation results are presented and analyzed to verify the
validity of MDIS as well as point out its disadvantages for further research
direction.Comment: 16 pages, ICCSA 2013 - BIOCA sessio
Combining local regularity estimation and total variation optimization for scale-free texture segmentation
Texture segmentation constitutes a standard image processing task, crucial to
many applications. The present contribution focuses on the particular subset of
scale-free textures and its originality resides in the combination of three key
ingredients: First, texture characterization relies on the concept of local
regularity ; Second, estimation of local regularity is based on new multiscale
quantities referred to as wavelet leaders ; Third, segmentation from local
regularity faces a fundamental bias variance trade-off: In nature, local
regularity estimation shows high variability that impairs the detection of
changes, while a posteriori smoothing of regularity estimates precludes from
locating correctly changes. Instead, the present contribution proposes several
variational problem formulations based on total variation and proximal
resolutions that effectively circumvent this trade-off. Estimation and
segmentation performance for the proposed procedures are quantified and
compared on synthetic as well as on real-world textures
Synthesis of normal and abnormal heart sounds using Generative Adversarial Networks
En esta tesis doctoral se presentan diferentes métodos propuestos para el análisis y sÃntesis de sonidos cardÃacos normales y anormales, logrando los siguientes aportes al estado del arte: i) Se implementó un algoritmo basado en la transformada wavelet empÃrica (EWT) y la energÃa promedio normalizada de Shannon (NASE) para mejorar la etapa de segmentación automática de los sonidos cardÃacos; ii) Se implementaron diferentes técnicas de extracción de caracterÃsticas para las señales cardÃacas utilizando los coeficientes cepstrales de frecuencia Mel (MFCC), los coeficientes de predicción lineal (LPC) y los valores de potencia. Además, se probaron varios modelos de Machine Learning para la clasificación automática de sonidos cardÃacos normales y anormales; iii) Se diseñó un modelo basado en Redes Adversarias Generativas (GAN) para generar sonidos cardÃacos sintéticos normales. Además, se implementa un algoritmo de eliminación de ruido utilizando EWT, lo que permite una disminución en la cantidad de épocas y el costo computacional que requiere el modelo GAN; iv) Finalmente, se propone un modelo basado en la arquitectura GAN, que consiste en refinar señales cardÃacas sintéticas obtenidas por un modelo matemático con caracterÃsticas de señales cardÃacas reales. Este modelo se ha denominado FeaturesGAN y no requiere una gran base de datos para generar diferentes tipos de sonidos cardÃacos. Cada uno de estos aportes fueron validados con diferentes métodos objetivos y comparados con trabajos publicados en el estado del arte, obteniendo resultados favorables.DoctoradoDoctor en IngenierÃa Eléctrica y Electrónic
Emotion Recognition from Speech with Acoustic, Non-Linear and Wavelet-based Features Extracted in Different Acoustic Conditions
ABSTRACT: In the last years, there has a great progress in automatic speech recognition. The challenge now it is not only recognize the semantic content in the speech but also the called "paralinguistic" aspects of the speech, including the emotions, and the personality of the speaker. This research work aims in the development of a methodology for the automatic emotion recognition from speech signals in non-controlled noise conditions. For that purpose, different sets of acoustic, non-linear, and wavelet based features are used to characterize emotions in different databases created for such purpose
A COMPUTATION METHOD/FRAMEWORK FOR HIGH LEVEL VIDEO CONTENT ANALYSIS AND SEGMENTATION USING AFFECTIVE LEVEL INFORMATION
VIDEO segmentation facilitates e±cient video indexing and navigation in large
digital video archives. It is an important process in a content-based video
indexing and retrieval (CBVIR) system. Many automated solutions performed seg-
mentation by utilizing information about the \facts" of the video. These \facts"
come in the form of labels that describe the objects which are captured by the cam-
era. This type of solutions was able to achieve good and consistent results for some
video genres such as news programs and informational presentations. The content
format of this type of videos is generally quite standard, and automated solutions
were designed to follow these format rules. For example in [1], the presence of news
anchor persons was used as a cue to determine the start and end of a meaningful
news segment.
The same cannot be said for video genres such as movies and feature films.
This is because makers of this type of videos utilized different filming techniques to
design their videos in order to elicit certain affective response from their targeted
audience. Humans usually perform manual video segmentation by trying to relate
changes in time and locale to discontinuities in meaning [2]. As a result, viewers
usually have doubts about the boundary locations of a meaningful video segment
due to their different affective responses.
This thesis presents an entirely new view to the problem of high level video
segmentation. We developed a novel probabilistic method for affective level video
content analysis and segmentation. Our method had two stages. In the first stage,
a®ective content labels were assigned to video shots by means of a dynamic bayesian
0. Abstract 3
network (DBN). A novel hierarchical-coupled dynamic bayesian network (HCDBN)
topology was proposed for this stage. The topology was based on the pleasure-
arousal-dominance (P-A-D) model of a®ect representation [3]. In principle, this
model can represent a large number of emotions. In the second stage, the visual,
audio and a®ective information of the video was used to compute a statistical feature
vector to represent the content of each shot. Affective level video segmentation was
achieved by applying spectral clustering to the feature vectors.
We evaluated the first stage of our proposal by comparing its emotion detec-
tion ability with all the existing works which are related to the field of a®ective video
content analysis. To evaluate the second stage, we used the time adaptive clustering
(TAC) algorithm as our performance benchmark. The TAC algorithm was the best
high level video segmentation method [2]. However, it is a very computationally
intensive algorithm. To accelerate its computation speed, we developed a modified
TAC (modTAC) algorithm which was designed to be mapped easily onto a field
programmable gate array (FPGA) device. Both the TAC and modTAC algorithms
were used as performance benchmarks for our proposed method.
Since affective video content is a perceptual concept, the segmentation per-
formance and human agreement rates were used as our evaluation criteria. To obtain
our ground truth data and viewer agreement rates, a pilot panel study which was
based on the work of Gross et al. [4] was conducted. Experiment results will show
the feasibility of our proposed method. For the first stage of our proposal, our
experiment results will show that an average improvement of as high as 38% was
achieved over previous works. As for the second stage, an improvement of as high
as 37% was achieved over the TAC algorithm
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