PhD Studentship in Compressed Sensing of Audio Scenes (Ddln: 19 Sept 2008)

[Mark Plumbley <mark.plumbley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[Apologies for cross-posting. Please forward to any potentially
interested candidates. Thanks, Mark.]
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   PhD Studentship in Compressed Sensing of Audio Scenes

        (Application deadline: 19 September 2008)


Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship to
investigate the analysis of musical and environmental audio,
using the technique of compressed sensing, to commence in
October 2008, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Compressed sensing is a new technique concerned with reducing
the number of measurements necessary to reconstruct an object.
It is based on the principle that the object has some underlying
sparse representation, i.e. that it can be described using a
small number of non-zero coefficients. Audio scenes may be
sparse in the time domain, if each source sounds only rarely; in
the frequency domain, if the sound sources use a small number of
frequencies; or in the spatial domain, if there are only a small
number of discrete sound sources. The aim of the PhD project is
to investigate compressed sensing techniques to extract audio
from such sound scenes, and compare with existing methods for
audio source separation and audio enhancement.

This PhD will be supervised by Dr Mark D Plumbley
(www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/people/markp), and will take place in the
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen
Mary University of London, within the world-leading Centre for
Digital Music (although the research is not limited to musical
audio). The work will form part of a new programme of research
in "Machine Listening using Sparse Representations", supported
by a Leadership Fellowship from the UK Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This is to be a concerted
programme of research in machine listening (the automatic
analysis and understanding of sounds from the world around us),
using methods from sparse representations, and to establish
machine listening as a key enabling technology to improve our
ability to interact with the world.

Applicants must have a first degree in electronic engineering,
mathematical science, physics, statistics, computer science, or
allied disciplines (minimum: good 2:1 or equivalent), and
excellent mathematical and programming skills. Previous
experience of digital signal processing of audio is desirable,
although not mandatory.

The 3-year studentship will comprise full fees for "home"
(UK/EU) students and an annual stipend commencing at £14,600
including London Allowance (stipends are exempt of UK tax),
subject to satisfactory progress.

For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Mark D Plumbley,
Queen Mary, University of London, mark.plumbley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

For application forms and information on how to apply, see
http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/study/phd/res-stud.htm.

Deadline: 19 September 2008

--
Dr Mark D Plumbley
Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/people/markp/