The second María de Maeztu Strategic Research Program of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) at UPF is a 4-year research initiative funded under the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2021-2023. The objective is to put DTIC's expertise on intelligence, both artificial and natural, at the service of research efforts that, while having an ICT component, might intersect with other disciplines.

As part of the program's research and innovation activities, three projects of the MTG have been selected to be part of the strategic program:

Freesound’s coming of age.

Project coordinated by Frederic Font. 

Now that Freesound is coming of age and is approaching its 20th anniversary, we believe it is time to further consolidate the platform and its unique potential for research. To this end, we have set a number of objectives that maintain a tight relation with the current MdM program. These include to O1) carry out state of the art audio research taking advantage of the privileged context provided by Freesound; O2) carry out dissemination activities both within UPF and outside UPF to promote research collaborations and technology transfer; and O3) maximise Freesound’s impact in relation to UPF’s Planetary Wellbeing initiative. 

Music and Motion Sensing for Neurorehabilitation.

Project coordinated by Rafael Ramírez.

In this project, we propose to investigate novel music-based rehabilitation approaches in which patients control digital music instruments using motion capture sensors (e.g. webcam, mobile devices gyroscopes and accelerometers) and electromyogram sensors (e.g. Myo). This approach to stroke rehabilitation can be significantly more efficient than traditional physiotherapy as has been shown in a (randomized, double-blind, controlled) pilot study we conducted in the hospital Forum Consorci MAR. In the proposed project, we will investigate the benefits of different interventions for recovery in chronic stroke patients, explore interventions for motor function recovery of other parts of the body, target other conditions in addition to stroke, and potentiate the use of mobile devices’ sensors to enable at-home rehabilitation. 

Essentia API.

Project coordinated by Dmitry Bogdanov and Pablo Alonso.

The project originates from an initiative to explore strategies for the commercial viability of technologies and know-how developed at the Music Technology Group following open innovation practices, which involves finding new licensing schemes and building custom solutions. Specifically, we plan to launch a new web API product for music audio analysis with state-of-the-art AI models, allowing users to analyze audio via file uploads or URLs by request. The project is based on the core open-source Essentia library, which we want to extend into a scalable web service to explore new commercialization opportunities. 

The projects will be officially presented in the Maria de Maeztu Launch event on October 5th, 2023 at 10:00h (Auditorium UPF - Campus Poblenou).

Maria de Maeztu Launch event program