NEWSLETTERCentreforAcousticSignalProcessingResearch

(CASPR)

June2017

Contents

1

IntroductiontoCASPR

2

Inauguration

3

News

4

Publications

5 PhDStipends

DepartmentofElectronicSystemsSignalandInformationProcessingSection

AalborgUniversity

The Centre for Acoustic Signal Processing Research (CASPR)is a newlyfounded centre at the Section for Signal and Information Processing,Department of Electronic Systems,Aalborg University,Denmark. CASPR issupportedbytheOticonFoundation,OticonA/S,andAalborgUniversity.

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ThescientificdisciplinesofCASPR

CASPRisconductingresearchrelatedtoadvancedstatisticalsignalprocessingsolutionsforassistivelistening.Theresearchfindsdirectuseincommunicationdevicessuchashearingaids,helmets,headphones,cochlearimplants,earmonitor,earpieces,diagnosticequipment,etc.However,theenvisionedresearchalsofindsuseinrelatedareassuchasrobustspeech/speakerrecognition,braincomputerinterfaces,acousticeventdetection,etc.

ThescientificscopeofCASPRencompasses

• statisticalsignalprocessing• machinelearning• informationandcommunicationtheorywith

applicationstowirelessexchangeofinformationbetweenlisteningdevicesandotherexternaldevices

• patternrecognition• datamininginbodywornsensordata• perception-basedstatisticalsignalprocessing

CASPRwillnavigateinarapidlychangingtechnologicallandscape:weenvisionanearfuture,wherethetechnologicallandscapeallowsverydifferent,andbetter,hearingassistivedevicesthanareknowntoday.Specifically,weenvisionthatnear-futurehearingassistivedeviceswill:

§ increasethewirelessexchangeofinformationwitheachother,withotherbody-worndevicesandwithdevicesoutsidethebody.

§ makeuseofadditionalmicrophonesonoroutsidethebody,andwillemployothertypesofbody-wornoroutside-the-bodysensors.

§ workinamuchclosersymbiosiswiththeuser.

ResearchinCASPR

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G3-111:(lefttoright)Martin,Mathias,Emil,Hoza

CoursesrelatedtoCASPR

AsignificantpartofCASPRhastodowithteachingatB.Sc.,M.Sc.,PhD.,andPostdoclevelindisciplinesthatarerelevanttothescientificscopeofCASPR:

§ MachineLearning(MasterandPhDcourses),Fall+Spring,2017§ DeepLearning(PhDcourse),Spring2017§ InformationTheory(MasterandPhDcourses),Fall2017§ ArrayProcessing(Mastercourse)Fall2017§ Optimization(MasterandPhDcourses),Fall2017§ PlatformsandMethodsforMultimodalSystemArchitectures

(Mastercourse),Fall2017.§ SignalProcessingforHearingAssistiveDevices(PhDcourseand

WinterSchool),Fall2017.

CurrentStudentprojectswithinCASPR

§ “SoundSourceLocalizationforHearingAids”.MathematicalEngineering,8thSemester.GroupG3-111:EmilSkovfogedGregersen,MartinMølbachNissen,MathiasBachPedersen,HozaBenjaminManiragaba.

§ “Deepdenoisingautoencoderforspeechenhancement”.MathematicalEngineering,8thSemester.GroupG3-115:PeterSibbernFrederiksen,MathiasBülowKastbjerg,SørenSkov.

§ “Convolutionalgenerativeadversarialnetworksforspeechenhancement”.MathematicalEngineering,6thSemester.CasperBenjaminAndersen,BarbaraMartinovic,JacobJohansen.

§ “Conditionalgenerativeadversarialnetworksforspeechprocessing”.Vision,GraphicsandInteractiveSystems,Masterthesisproject:DanielMichelsanti.

TeachinginCASPR

G3-115:(lefttoright)Mathias,Peter,Søren

17gr1046:DanielC4-207:(lefttoright)Casper,Barbara,Jacob

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OnMarch2nd,2017,CASPRwasofficiallyopened.TheeventtookplaceatAalborgUniversityandincludedspeechesfromEskildHolmNielsen,DeanoftheTechnicalFacultyofICTandDesign,AAU,FinnMöhring,VicePresidentatOticonA/S,BørgeLindberg,HeadofDepartmentofElectronicSystems,AAU,andClausNielsen,Eriksholm,OticonA/S.Theeventhostedmorethan60participantsincludingindustrialparticipants,studentsandresearchers.

InaugurationofCASPR

ResearchaudiologistfromOticonsaudiologicalresearchcenter,ClausNielsenplaceshearinglossandhearingaidsinahistoricalperspective.

BørgeLindberg,HeadofDepartmentofElectronicSystems,AAU.

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Areceptionwassetupinthemainhall.Atthereception,thePhDstudentsintheSectionforSignalandInformationProcessing(SIP)presentedtheirlatestresearchonposters,anddemosandlabtoursweregiven.

Thefollowingdemosweregivenattheevent:

• Detectionofwordsinnoise

• DNNforspeechenhancement

• SocialRobots(iSocioBot)

• Multimicrophonespeechenhancement

• Hearingaidshands-on

Poster ResearchTopic Presenter#1 DetectionofSpokenWordsinNoise:ComparisonofHumanPerformance

toMaximumLikelihoodDetectionM.Jahromi

#2 WirelessHigh-QualityAudioStreamingwithSuperregularErasureCorrection

J.Hansen

#3 JointAudioCompressionandEnhancementinNetworks A.Zahedi#4 DeepNeuralNetworksforSpeechEnhancementandSeparation M.Kolbæk#5 DeepNeuralNetworksforSpoofingDetection H.Yu#6 RobustAudio-BasedDirection-of-AttentionandNavigationonSocial

RobotsN.B.Thomsen

#7 MetricLearningforFaceRecognition X.Duan#8 IncorporatingPass-PhraseDependentBackgroundModelsforText

DependentSpeakerVerificationA.K.Sarkar

#9 PersonalisingContentSelectionUsingVision-BasedUserIdentificationinaContextualOntologicalFramework

M.S.Kristoffersen

#10 IntelligibilityPredictionforHearingAssistiveDevices A.H.Andersen#11 Multi-MicrophoneSpeechEnhancementandDereverberation J.Jensen#12 InformedSoundSourceLocalizationforHearingAssistiveDevices M.Farmani#13 Theeffectoftransmissiondelayonrateandperformanceinclosed-loop

networkedsystemsM.Barforooshan

#14 Hearingaidhands-on C.Nielsen#15 CASPR:Vision,Mission,andScientificScope J.Østergaard,

Z.-H.Tan,J.Jensen

InaugurationofCASPR

ListofposterspresentedattheinaugurationofCASPR.

NEWSOnFebruary2nd,2017,ProfessorPatrickNaylorfromImperialCollegeLondon,visitedourgroupandgaveapresentationentitled"MeasurementandExploitationofReverberationinSpeechsignals".

Apaperco-authoredbyJ.JensenofCASPRreceivedanIEEESignalProcessingSocietyBestPaperAward.AnAlgorithmforIntelligibilityPredictionofTime–FrequencyWeightedNoisySpeech,C.H.Taal,R.C.Hendriks,R.HeusdensandJ.Jensen,TransactionsonAudio,Speech,andLanguageProcessing,Volume19,No.7,September2011.Forthisaward,papersina5yearwindowspanningfrom2011-2016areconsidered.Theawardhonorstheauthor(s)ofapaperofexceptionalmeritdealingwithasubjectrelatedtotheSociety’stechnicalscope,andappearinginoneoftheSociety’ssolelyownedtransactionsortheJournalofSelectedTopicsinSignalProcessing,irrespectiveoftheauthor’sage.

BestpaperawardceremonyattheICASSPconferenceinNewOrleans,USA,March2017.Fromleft:Dr.C.H.Taal(QubyLabs,Amsterdam),AssistantProf.R.C.Hendriks(DelftUniversityofTech.),R.K.Ward(PresidentIEEESignalProc.Society),Assoc.Prof.R.Heusdens(DelftUniversityofTech.),Prof.J.Jensen(AalborgUniversity).

PleasevisittheCASPRwebsitehttp://caspr.es.aau.dkformorenews.

CASPRispleasedtoannounceanupcomingWinterSchoolonSignalProcessingforHearingAssistiveDevices,tobeheldatAalborgUniversity,DenmarkonNov.6–10,2017.Thewinterschooltargetsresearchersandengineersinthesoundprocessingfield.Lecturesaregivenbyinternationalexperts,whichcoverareassuchasbasicauditoryperception,beamforming,noisereduction,dereverberation,feedbackcancellation,hearinglosscompensation,cochlearimplants,screeningofhearinginnewborns,andemergingtechnologies.Moreinformationtofollow.

JournalPapers1. DNNFilterBankCepstralCoefficientsforSpoofing

Detection.H.Yu,Z.-H.Tan,Y.Zhang,Z.Ma,andJ.Guo,IEEEAccess,vol.5,pp.4779-4787,2017.

2. InformedSoundSourceLocalizationUsingRelativeTransferFunctionsforHearingAidApplications.M.Farmani,M.S.Pedersen,Z.-H.TanandJ.Jensen,IEEETrans.Audio,Speech,LanguageProcess.,vol.25,no.3,pp.611—623,2017.

3. DecorrelationofNeutralVectorVariables:TheoryandApplications.Z.Ma,J.-H.Xue,A.Leijon,Z.-H.Tan,Z.Yang,andJ.Guo,IEEETransactionsonNeuralNetworksandLearningSystems,toappear,2017.

4. Audio-basedGranularity-adaptedEmotionClassification.S.W.Shepstone,Z.-H.Tan,andS.H.Jensen,IEEETransactionsonAffectiveComputing,toappear,2017.

5. Text-IndependentSpeakerIdentificationUsingtheHistogramTransformModel.Z.Ma,H.Yu,Z.-H.Tan,andJ.Guo,IEEEAccess,vol.4,pp.9733-9739,2016.

6. Multi-channelWienerfiltersinbinauralandbilateralhearingaids–speechintelligibilityimprovementandrobustnesstoDoAerrors.A.KuklasińskiandJ.Jensen,JournaloftheAudioEngineeringSociety,vol.25,no.1/2,pp.8—16,2017.

7. RelaxedBinauralLCMVBeamforming.A.I.Koutrouvelis,R.C.Hendriks,R.HeusdensandJ.Jensen,IEEETrans.Audio,Speech,LanguageProcess.,Vol.25,No.1,pp.133–148,2017.

8. SpeechIntelligibilityPotentialofGeneralandSpecializedDeepNeuralNetworkBasedSpeechEnhancementSystems.M.Kolbæk,Z.-H.TanandJ.Jensen,IEEETrans.Audio,Speech,LanguageProcess.,Vol.25,No.1,pp.149–163,2017.

9. SourceCodinginNetworkswithCovarianceDistortionConstraints.A.Zahedi,J.Østergaard,S.H.Jensen,P.Naylor,andS.Bech,IEEETransactionsonSignalProcessing,Vol.64,Issue22,pp.5943–5958,November2016.

10. AnAlgorithmforPredictingtheIntelligibilityofSpeechMaskedbyModulatedNoiseMaskers.J.JensenandC.H.Taal,IEEETrans.Audio,Speech,LanguageProcess.,Vol.24,No.11,pp.2009–2022,2016.

11. PredictingtheIntelligibilityofNoisyandNonlinearlyProcessedBinauralSpeech.A.H.Andersen,Z.-H.Tan,J.M.deHaan,andJ.Jensen,IEEETrans.Audio,Speech,LanguageProcess.,Vol.24,No.11,pp.1908–1920,2016.

ConferencePapers1. Humansdonotmaximizetheprobabilityofcorrectdecision

whenrecognizingDANTALEwordsinnoise.M.Z.Jahromi,J.Østergaard,andJ.Jensen,Proc.Interspeech2017.

2. OntheuseofBandImportanceWeightingintheShort-TimeObjectiveIntelligibilityMeasure.A.H.Andersen,J.M.deHaan,Z.-H.TanandJ.Jensen,Proc.Interspeech2017.

3. AdversarialNetworkBottleneckFeaturesforNoiseRobustSpeakerVerification.H.Yu,Z.-H.Tan,Z.MaandJ.Guo,Proc.Interspeech2017.

4. ConditionalGenerativeAdversarialNetworksforSpeechEnhancementandNoise-RobustSpeakerVerification.D.MichelsantiandZ.-H.Tan,Proc.Interspeech2017.

5. ImprovingSpeakerVerificationPerformanceinPresenceofSpoofingAttacksUsingOut-of-DomainSpoofedData.A.Sarkar,MdSahidullah,Z.-H.TanandT.Kinnunen,Proc.Interspeech2017

6. PermutationInvariantTrainingofDeepModelsforSpeaker-IndependentMulti-TalkerSpeechSeparation.D.Yu,M.Kolbæk,Z.-H.Tan,J.Jensen,Proc.InternationalConf.Audio,Speech,SignalProc.(ICASSP),March2017.

7. ANon-IntrusiveShort-TimeObjectiveIntelligibilityMeasure.A.H.Andersen,J.M.deHaan,Z.-H.Tan,andJ.Jensen,Proc.InternationalConf.Audio,Speech,SignalProc.(ICASSP),March2017.

8. RedDotsReplayed:ANewReplaySpoofingAttackCorpusforText-dependentSpeakerVerificationResearch.T.Kinnunen,M.Sahidullah,M.Falcone,L.Costantini,R.Hautamaki,D.Thomsen,A.Sarkar,Z.-H.Tan,H.Delgado,M.Todisco,N.Evans,V.Hautamaki,andK.A.Lee,Proc.InternationalConf.Audio,Speech,SignalProc.(ICASSP),March2017.

9. AnAsymmetricDifferenceMultipleDescriptionGaussianNoiseChannel.J.Østergaard,Y.Kochman,andR.Zamir,IEEEDataProcessingConference,April,2017.

10. TDOA-basedSelf-CalibrationofDual-MicrophoneArrays.M.Farmani,R.Heusdens,M.S.Pedersen,Z.-H.TanandJ.Jensen,Proc.19thInternationalConferenceonInformationFusion(FUSION),2016.

11. SpeechEnhancementUsingLongShort-TermMemoryBasedRecurrentNeuralNetworksforNoiseRobustSpeakerVerification.M.Kolbæk,Z.-H.Tan,andJ.Jensen,Proc.IEEESpokenLanguageTechnologyWorkshop,2016.

12. FurtherOptimisationsofConstantQCepstralProcessingforIntegratedUtteranceandText-dependentSpeakerVerification.H.Delgado,M.Todisco,M.Sahidullah,A.Sarkar,N.Evans,T.Kinnunen,andZ.-H.Tan,Proc.IEEESpokenLanguageTechnologyWorkshop,2016.

13. TwoAsymmetricDescriptionsfromManySymmetricDescriptions.A.Mashiach,Y.Kochman,J.Østergaard,andR.Zamir,InternationalConferenceontheScienceofElectricalEngineering(ICSEE),2016.

14. DetectionofSpokenWordsinNoise:ComparisonofHumanPerformancetoMaximumLikelihoodDetection.M.Z.Jahromi,J.Østergaard,andJ.Jensen,Proc.IEEEGlobalConferenceonSignalandInformationProcessing(GlobalSIP),2016.

RecentCASPRRelatedResearchPublications

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CASPRwillhaveanumberoffullyfundedPhDstipendsavailablein2017.Wearelookingforhighlymotivated,independent,andoutstandingstudentsthatdesiretodoasuccessful3-yearPhDprogrammeatAalborgUniversity.Theidealcandidatesmusthavestrongexpertiseinoneormoreofthefollowingdisciplines:statisticalsignalprocessing,auditoryperception,machinelearning,informationtheory,orestimationtheory.GoodEnglishverbalandwrittenskillsareamust.Excellentundergraduateandmasterdegreegradesaredesired.PhDpositionsinDenmarkarefullyfunded,i.e.notuitionfees,andcomewithasalary.Thesalaryissubjecttoapaygradesystembasedonpriorworkingexperiencesincecompletingyourundergraduatedegree.Theyearlygrosssalaryisintherange41.500–50.100Euros.

YoumayobtainfurtherinformationaboutthePhDstipendsfromProfessor(MSO)JanØstergaard(jo@es.aau.dk),AssociateProfessorZheng-HuaTan(zt@es.aau.dk),orProfessorJesperJensen(jje@es.aau.dk),CASPR,AalborgUniversity,concerningthescientificaspectsofthestipends.

PhDStipendsavailableinCASPR

AalborgUniversity(http://www.en.aau.dk/)isoneoftheleadingDanishuniversitieswithcampusesinAalborg,EsbjergandCopenhagen.ThestudentpopulationofAAUcomprisesofaround21.000regular(bothundergraduateandpostgraduate)studentsand947PhDstudents.AAUisfamousforitsinnovativeproblemandprojectbasedlearningapproach(PBL)wherestudentsworkonteam-basedprojectssolving‘real-life’problemsincollaborationwithorganisationsorcompanies.AalborgUniversityisacknowledgedforcollaborationwithindustryandaccordingtoShanghai/ARWUWorldRank,AalborgUniversityisno.7intheworldwithintheresearchfieldofElectronicandElectricalEngineering.AccordingtoTimesHigherEducation,AalborgUniversityisno.201-250intheoverallworlduniversityranking,andno.31intheTop100ofuniversitiesestablishedwithinthepast50years.