No subject

Dear Connectionists,

Either RA post below may appeal to someone with a background in coding
and/or analysis of audio using e.g. neural networks. Please forward to
anyone who may be interested.

Many thanks,

Mark Plumbley
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                 Centre for Digital Music
             Queen Mary, University of London

     Two Post-Doctoral Research Assistants for EPSRC Projects

(1) Object-based Coding of Musical Audio and
(2) Advanced Subband Systems for Audio Source Separation

The Centre for Digital Music is at the forefront of research related
to digital music and audio analysis, modeling and processing,
including work on digital audio effects, music analysis, music
information retrieval, and audio coding. Research Assistants are
required for two new EPSRC projects in the Centre.

* RA Post 1: Object-Based Coding of Musical Audio (Ref: 04097/DP)

The aim of this project is to develop a way to encode musical audio
using high-level "sound objects" such as musical notes or chords. This
will allow musical audio to be compressed using very low bit rates,
over e.g. MPEG4 Structured Audio, with the audio resynthesized at the
receiver. The project will develop and investigate methods to encode
monophonic (single-note) music and polyphonic music (with several
notes at once), and will compare the quality and efficiency of these
coding methods with existing methods such as transform coding and
parametric coding.

* RA Post 2: Advanced Subband Systems for Audio Source Separation
* (Ref: 04098/DP)

Humans primarily use phase information to localize sounds at low
frequency, whereas in the upper frequencies intensity differences
dominate due to inherent phase ambiguities. The aim of this project is
to create new algorithmic solutions for blind source separation (BSS)
for speech and audio that can deal with real acoustic environments in
a similar manner to human hearing. The algorithms need to be able to
deal with real noisy and reverberant environments and be able to track
individual sources as they move and appear/disappear. Such systems
will be key in future electronic devices, such as digital hearing aids
and hands-free tele-conferencing. The project will also focus on the
construction of a real time prototype for system evaluation and
demonstration.

The salary for the posts will be at up to =A324,325 per annum,
inclusive of London Allowance, on the RA1A scale.

Further details about the Department are on the web site
http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/ and about the College on
http://www.qmul.ac.uk. Further details and an application form, can be
obtained from http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/department/vacancies/

Completed application forms should be returned to Theresa Willis,
Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary, University of
London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS (email:
theresa.willis at elec.qmul.ac.uk), by Wednesday 21 April 2004.

Working Towards Equal Opportunities

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Dr Mark D Plumbley
Centre for Digital Music
Department of Electronic Engineering
Queen Mary University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 7518
Fax: +44 (0)20 7882 7997
Email: mark.plumbley at elec.qmul.ac.uk