http://www.iasa-web.org/

When IASA was founded 40 years ago few could imagine the realities with which today’s audiovisual archives are confronted. As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the digital age for archives, libraries and museums is not an option, but a reality. Huge digitisation projects have been or are being implemented while at the same time the production and distribution of the new content is mostly digital.
What is the role of the audiovisual archives in this new technological environment? How distinct are the roles of the various cultural heritage institutions? What methods and techniques will ensure the accountability and continuity of the audiovisual content? How have users’ expectations been changed and what strategies have been employed to meet them? Which is the role of international organisations and of the IASA in this new environment? How can the National Archives of big and smallest countries can cope with this new environment?

The Audio Research Group is based in the School of Electrical Engineering Systems at the Dublin Institute of Technology. The group has been active since 2001. Currently the group is headed by Dr. Eugene Coyle and is under the technical direction of Mr. Dan Barry, Dr. Mikel Gainza and Dr. David Dorran. In total the group currently consists of 12 researchers. The the group's expertise lie in the following areas of speech and audio processing:

* Sound Source Separation
* Time Scale Modification
* Automatic Transcription
* Rhythm Description Systems
* Feature Detection and Extraction
* Speech Synthesis
* Voice Modifications
* Forensic Audio Applications
* Noise Reduction Algorithms
* General Audio Processing for professional and consumer audio applications

Along with applied and academic research, the Audio Research Group also engages in consultancy and industry collaboration as well as national and internationally funded research projects. We currently have several proprietary technologies which are available for licence; see demopage. Contact us for further information.
Email: dan.barry@dit.ie
Phone: +353 1 402 2862

Suspicious and abnormal behaviour monitoring using a network of cameras & sensors for situation awareness enhancement (SAMURAI)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: SEC-2007-2.3-04 Small area 24 hours surveillance,SEC-2007-2.3-03 Detection of abnormal behaviour
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: GONG, Shaogang (Professor)
Tel: +44-2078825249
Fax: +44-2089806533
Email: Contact
Organisation: QUEEN MARY AND WESTFIELD COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Mile End Road
UNITED KINGDOM

Project description

The aim of SAMURAI is to develop and integrate an innovative intelligent surveillance system for robust monitoring of both inside and surrounding areas of a critical public infrastructure site.

SAMURAI has three significant novelties that make it distinctive from other recent and ongoing relevant activities both in the EU and elsewhere:
- SAMURAI is to employ networked heterogeneous sensors rather than CCTV cameras alone so that multiple complementary sources of information can be fused to create a visualisation of a more complete big picture of a crowded public space.
- Existing systems focus on analysing recorded video using pre-defined hard rules, suffering from unacceptable false alarms. SAMURAI is to develop a real-time adaptive behaviour profiling and abnormality detection system for alarm event alert and prediction with much reduced false alarm.
- In addition to fix-positioned CCTV cameras, the SAMURAI system will also take command input from control room operators and mobile sensory input for patrolling security staff for a hybrid context-aware based abnormal behaviour recognition. This is in contrary to current video behaviour recognition system that relies purely on information extracted from the video data, often too ambiguous to be effective.

SAMURAI has the following scientific objectives:

Self-configuring environment-aware intelligent acoustic sensing (SCENIC)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: ICT-2007.8.0 FET Open
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: CONTI, FABIO
Tel: +39-022-3993431
Fax: +39-022-3993437
Email: Contact
Organisation: POLITECNICO DI MILANO
PIAZZA LEONARDO DA VINCI 32 32
20133 MILANO
ITALY

Project description

Advanced sound processing applications, particularly those based on array processing, are critically sensitive to the environment's acoustic response because their design does not account for the complex propagation phenomena that cause it. Reverberations are usually seen as a liability to take countermeasures against, while nature teaches us that the information provided by the acoustic interaction with the environment can become a valuable asset that enables complex navigational tasks and more. Turning the acoustic response from a liability into an asset requires a thorough understanding of propagation phenomena, and an accurate acoustic modelling of the environment. This can be done by listening to how the environment renders controlled sound emissions, as long as such emission exhibits a temporal as well as a spatial "structure".

The SCENIC project is aimed at developing a comprehensive set of methodologies and analysis tools that will enable acoustic systems to become aware of their own characteristics and geometry and those of the environment that they operate in, and will enable advanced space-time processing solutions to take advantage of the additional information provided by the environment's acoustic response. One key point of the project is in the fact that, in order to achieve this status of awareness, sensors and sources will be used together in a synergistic fashion, while keeping into account requirements of flexibility, cost and real-time operation.

intelligent metadata-driven processing and distribution of audiovisual media (IMP)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: ICT-2007.4.4 Intelligent content and semantics (ICT-2007.4.4)
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: FUENMAYOR, EUGENIA
Tel: +34-93-5421100
Fax: +34-93-5422896
Email: Contact
Organisation: FUNDACIO BARCELONA MEDIA UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA
PLAZA DE LA MERCE 10-12
08002 BARCELONA
SPAIN

Project description

iMP will create architecture, workflow and applications for intelligent metadata-driven processing and distribution of digital movies and entertainment. The goal is to enable a "Virtual Film Factory" in which creative professionals can work together to create and customise programmes from Petabyte-scale digital repositories, using semantic technologies to organise data and drive its processing. By separating metadata from essence, controlling all the image and sound processing operations from the metadata layer, we can maintain the underlying data library unchanged while enabling a new generation of more flexible applications. This will radically reduce the amount of data created: new versions, grades, or language releases only result in additional metadata, not new data files. The system will support a more automated workflow for content distribution from postproduction to the assembly, distribution and play-out of multiple variations of programmes in different formats and locations.

Outcomes will be:
- An infrastructure in which multi-Petabye data stores are managed by persistent metadata in a distributed metadatabase.
- Real-time interaction with media sequences selected from the data store. When a sequence is changed, by an application, the commands are stored as a new set of metadata.

Acoustic scene analysis for detecting living entities (SCANDLE)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: ICT-2007.2.2 Cognitive systems, interaction, robotics (ICT-2007.2.2)
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: DENHAM, SUSAN
Tel: +44-1752-584913
Fax: +44-1752-233349
Email: Contact
Organisation: UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH
DRAKE CIRCUS
UNITED KINGDOM

Project description

Analysing fine motor activity in articulatory structures of humans or animals in combination with the sounds they emit yields information about their intentions and likely future actions. In this project we propose to develop a cognitive acoustic scene analysis system that is able to synthesize composite representations of animate entities and their behaviour by integrating information from active and passive sound signatures; i.e. from actively self-generated (sonar) sounds and from passively received sounds emitted by those entities.

The system is an acoustic analogy to a camera-based visual scene analysis system, particularly suited to detecting the presence and characterising the behaviour of living entities in the environment. This highly innovative proposal builds upon fundamental research on perceptual organisation in natural systems, recent advances in models of auditory processing, and technological developments in ultra-low power, distributed neuromorphic systems and state-of-the-art micro-sonar technology. The biologically inspired architecture and processing mechanisms of the proposed system support autonomous real-time context-dependent operation, allowing it to parse complex mixtures of sounds into meaningful units and categorise them. We propose novel methodologies for evaluating the emergence of representations in autonomous systems, and for communicating the ongoing internal state of the system to human observers.

The effects of auditory training on human communication skills: behavior and physiology (AUDITORY LEARNING)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: PEOPLE-2007-4-3.IRG Marie Curie Action: "International Reintegration Grants"
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: AMINPOUR, Suzan (Ms.)
Tel: +972-48240549
Fax: +972-48288035
Email: Contact
Organisation: UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA.
Mont Carmel, Abba Khushy blvd
ISRAEL

Project description

Human communication relies on an array of auditory skills ranging from basic encoding of sound to auditory memory and attention. Improving these skills could benefit many individuals who either attempt to improve their communication skills (e.g., by learning a foreign language) or suffer from communication disorders. However, improving auditory skills remains a challenge because the mechanisms underlying auditory learning are poorly understood. In particular it is not clear whether learning simple auditory skills can generalize to more complex ones.

To address this issue, we will compare the outcomes of different auditory training regimens in the general population and between individuals with and without persistent reading and learning difficulties. We hypothesize that learning will modify both general and specific auditory mechanisms. However, we expect that while the modification of specific encoding mechanisms will be closely related to the nature of the stimuli used in training, general mechanisms like attention will be similarly affected by different training programs. To this end, students learning English as a second language will train on one of three training regimens (the first 2 are commercially available) emphasizing either general listening skills (LACE), phonemic discriminations (Phonomena), or basic auditory skills.

Worldwide observatory of malicious behaviors and attack threats (WOMBAT)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: ICT-2007.1.4 Secure, dependable and trusted infrastructures
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: VIAUD, FLORENCE
Tel: +33-1-45295904
Fax: +33-1-40957015
Email: Contact
Organisation: FRANCE TELECOM SA
PLACE D ALLERAY 6 BP 000
75015 PARIS
FRANCE

Project description

The WOMBAT project aims at providing new means to understand the existing and emerging threats that are targeting the Internet economy and the net citizens.

To reach this goal, the proposal includes three key workpackages:
(i) real time gathering of a diverse set of security related raw data,
(ii) enrichment of this input by means of various analysis techniques, and
(iii) root cause identification and understanding of the phenomena under scrutiny.

The acquired datasets and knowledge will be shared with all interested security actors (ISPs, CERTs, security vendors, etc.), enabling them to make sound security investment decisions and to focus on the most dangerous activities first. Special care will also be devoted to impact the level of confidence of the European citizens in the net economy by leveraging computer security awareness in Europe thanks to the gained expertise.

Project details
Project Acronym: WOMBAT
Project Reference: 216026
Start Date: 2008-01-01
Duration: 36 months
Project Cost: 4.42 million euro
Contract Type: Collaborative project (generic)
End Date: 2010-12-31
Project Status: Execution
Project Funding: 2.89 million euro

Digital signal processing in audiology (AUDIS)

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)

Research area: PEOPLE-2007-1-1-ITN Marie Curie Action: "Networks for Initial Training"
Coordinator
Contact Person: Name: MARTIN, Rainer (Professor)
Tel: +49-2343222496
Fax: +49-2343214165
Email: Contact
Organisation: RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM
Universitaetstrasse PF 102148
GERMANY

Project description

The rapid advance in embedded digital signal processing technology has recently led to significantly enhanced hearing devices. Besides the very basic task of restoring loudness, modern hearing aids and cochlear implants feature a range of advanced processing capabilities such as beamforming microphone arrays, noise reduction and automatic controls.

While some of these features have already resulted in improved performance, advanced approaches to signal enhancement, to auditory scene analysis and to signal reproduction strategies promise much improved user benefits. The application of advanced signal processing schemes in hearing instruments for the improved rehabilitation of hearing impaired users, however, requires close collaboration of researchers in digital signal processing, audiology and psychoacoustics. The ITN AUDIS will perform research and training in digital signal processing for applications in hearing instruments. The unique approach lies in the research and development of advanced statistical signal processing algorithms in the interdisciplinary area of audiology.

Project details
Project Acronym: AUDIS
Project Reference: 214699
Start Date: 2008-10-01
Duration: 48 months
Project Cost: 2.95 million euro
Contract Type: Networks for Initial Training (ITN)
End Date: 2012-09-30
Project Status: Execution
Project Funding: 2.95 million euro

Participants
SIEMENS AUDIOLOGISCHE TECHNIK GMBH GERMANY
COCHLEAR EUROPE LIMITED UNITED KINGDOM
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN BELGIUM
KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN SWEDEN

IASIG Wiki Home Interactive Audio
From Interactive Audio Wiki

The IASIG Interactive Audio Wiki is dedicated to assisting the audio community to learn about audio for electronic games and other interactive media and applications.

This site contains resources for educators and students as well as information for the community of composers and sound designers. In addition to tutorials, case studies, and interviews, you'll also find many links to other websites as well as book recommendations and educational programs that may provide additional help in learning about interactive audio.
[edit]
Contribute

This site is a continuous work in progress. We encourage anyone with experience in developing audio for interactive platforms to contribute to this site. Registered Users may update content in real time directly on the web.

If you would like to help edit or create content for this site, please contact the IASIG.
[edit]
Contents

This site is separated into primary topics. Students, faculty, professionals and amatuers are welcome to browse through any section.

* Introduction - This section gives you an orientation to this website as well as a brief history of gaming audio, some pioneers in the field, the future of game audio, and what resources you can find here.

* Glossary -This section contains an explanation of common terms used in game audio production.

* Studio Skills - This Studio Skills section deals with the beginning of the extradordinary set of knowlege that game audio sometimes requires. Studio skills are an important stepping stone to being able to create game audio and this section provides a basic understanding of the amount of knowlege to record, mix, and edit audio.