Metrical strength and contradiction in turkish Makam music

In this paper we investigate how note onsets in Turkish Makam music compositions are distributed, and in how far this distribution supports or contradicts the metrical structure of the pieces, the usul. We use MIDI data to derive the distributions in the form of onset histograms, and comparethem with metrical weights that are applied to describe the usul in theory. We compute correlation and syncopation values to estimate the degrees of support and contradiction, respectively. While the concept of syncopation is rarelymentioned in the context of this music, we can gain interesting insight into the structure of a piece using such a measure.We show that metrical contradiction is systematically applied in some metrical structures. We will compare thedifferences between Western music and Turkish Makam music regarding metrical support and contradiction. Such a study can help avoiding pitfalls in later attempts to perform audio processing tasks such as beat tracking or rhythmic similarity measurements.

Using music as a signal for biofeedback

Studies on the potential benefits of conveying biofeedback stimulus using a musical signal have appeared in recent years with the intent of harnessing the strong effects that music listening may have on subjects. While results are encouraging, the fundamental question has yet to be addressed, of how combined music and biofeedback compares to the already established use of either of these elements separately. This experiment, involving young adults (N = 24), compared the effectiveness at modulating participants' states of physiological arousal of each of the following conditions: A) listening to pre-recorded music, B) sonification biofeedback of the heart rate, and C) an algorithmically modulated musical feedback signal conveying the subject's heart rate. Our hypothesis was that each of the conditions (A), (B) and (C) would differ from the other two in the extent to which it enables participants to increase and decrease their state of physiological arousal, with (C) being more effective than (B), and both more than (A). Several physiological measures and qualitative responses were recorded and analyzed. Results show that using musical biofeedback allowed participants to modulate their state of physiological arousal at least equally well as sonification biofeedback, and much better than just listening to music, as reflected in their heart rate measurements, controlling for respiration-rate. Our findings indicate that the known effects of music in modulating arousal can therefore be beneficially harnessed when designing a biofeedback protocol.

Using music as a signal for biofeedback

Studies on the potential benefits of conveying biofeedback stimulus using a musical signal have appeared in recent years with the intent of harnessing the strong effects that music listening may have on subjects. While results are encouraging, the fundamental question has yet to be addressed, of how combined music and biofeedback compares to the already established use of either of these elements separately. This experiment, involving young adults (N = 24), compared the effectiveness at modulating participants' states of physiological arousal of each of the following conditions: A) listening to pre-recorded music, B) sonification biofeedback of the heart rate, and C) an algorithmically modulated musical feedback signal conveying the subject's heart rate. Our hypothesis was that each of the conditions (A), (B) and (C) would differ from the other two in the extent to which it enables participants to increase and decrease their state of physiological arousal, with (C) being more effective than (B), and both more than (A). Several physiological measures and qualitative responses were recorded and analyzed. Results show that using musical biofeedback allowed participants to modulate their state of physiological arousal at least equally well as sonification biofeedback, and much better than just listening to music, as reflected in their heart rate measurements, controlling for respiration-rate. Our findings indicate that the known effects of music in modulating arousal can therefore be beneficially harnessed when designing a biofeedback protocol.

La representació de cançons en gèneres audiovisuals musicals: Anàlisi de dos documentals musicals subtitulats i d'onze videoclips de Madonna

La subtitulació de cançons és un camp força inexplorat en el món de la traducció audiovisual. En aquest treball de recerca proposo un estudi més exhaustiu sobre la traducció de cançons, especialment pel que fa a la subtitulació, tot posant com a exemple una part de la producció discogràfica i cinematogràfica d’una de les icones internacionals de la música pop actual: Madonna. El treball està dividit en un primer capítol teòric sobre l’estat de la qüestió en relació a la subtitulació de cançons, un segon capítol amb els resultats d’una enquesta sobre la recepció de Madonna, un tercer capítol d’anàlisi del corpus escollit (els documentals musicals subtitulats In bed with Madonna i I’m going to tell you a secret i onze videoclips musicals de Madonna), i un quart i últim capítol de conclusions finals. L’objectiu principal del treball de recerca és determinar la importància de subtitular les cançons incloses als documentals musicals i, també, als videoclips musicals, gèneres audiovisuals en auge en l’actualitat. Song subtitling is a largely unexplored field in audiovisual translation. In this research paper I carry out a more exhaustive analysis on song translation, specially on subtitling, taking as an example a part of the music and film production of one of the most international icons of pop music nowadays: Madonna. The paper is divided into: a first chapter on the state of the art on song subtitling, a second chapter including the results of a survey about the reception of Madonna, a third chapter analysing the corpus (music documentaries In Bed With Madonna and I’m Going to Tell You a Secret and eleven Madonna music videos), and a fourth chapter with concluding remarks. The main object of this research is to determine the importance of subtitling the songs included in music documentaries and music videos, both currently flourishing genres.

Inter-American Court, Crimes Against Humanity and Peacebuilding in South America

The present work contains a general overview of the sentences of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), which have recognised that crimes against humanity are pre-existing in customary law, and do not prescribe, nor can they be subject to amnesty or pardon. Specific attention is paid to the consequent restrictions and opportunities offered by said verdicts to countries such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru, which find themselves in postconflict transition processes and where peace has been negotiated with certain groups and state structures that are responsible for carrying out crimes against humanity. In doing so, special attention is paid to the impact of the recognition of the nature of crimes against humanity on the notion of the principle of legality, stricto sensu; on the development and evolution of the doctrine and the practice of international human rights law in the inter-American context; and finally on the aforementioned processes of transitional justice.

Influència de la música sobre l'atenció humana: especial a la metodologia d'anàlisi, tot combinant metodologia quantitavia amb qualitativa (mix method)

Projecte de recerca elaborat a partir d’una estada a la University of Calgary, Canadà, entre desembre del 2007 i febrer del 2008. El projecte ha consistit en l'anàlisi de les dades d'una recerca en el camp de la psicologia de la música, concretament en com influeix la música en l'atenció a través de les vies dels estats emocionals i enèrgics de la persona. Per a la recerca es feu ús de videu en les sessions, obtenint dades visuals i auditives per a complementar les dades de tipus quantitatiu provinents dels resultats d'uns tests d'atenció subministrats. L'anàlisi es realitzà segons mètodes i tècniques de caràcter qualitatiu, apresos durant l'estada. Així mateix també s'ha aprofundit en la comprensió del paradigma qualitatiu com a paradigma vàlid i realment complementari del paradigma qualitatiu. S'ha focalitzat especialment en l'anàlisi de la conversa des d'un punt de vista interpretatiu així com l'anàlisi de llenguatge corporal i facial a partir de l'observació de videu, tot formulant descriptors i subdescriptors de la conducta que està relacionada amb la hipòtesis. Alguns descriptors havien estat formulats prèviament a l’anàlisi, en base a altres investigacions i al background de la investigadora; altres s’han anat descobrint durant l’anàlisi. Els descriptors i subdescriptors de la conducta estan relacionats amb l'intent dels estats anímics i enèrgics dels diferents participants. L'anàlisi s'ha realitzat com un estudi de casos, fent un anàlisi exhaustiu persona per persona amb l'objectiu de trobar patrons de reacció intrapersonals i intrapersonals. Els patrons observats s'utilitzaran com a contrast amb la informació quantitativa, tot realitzant triangulació amb les dades per trobar-ne possibles recolzaments o contradiccions entre sí. Els resultats preliminars indiquen relació entre el tipus de música i el comportament, sent que la música d'emotivitat negativa està associada a un tancament de la persona, però quan la música és enèrgica els participants s'activen (conductualment observat) i somriuen si aquesta és positiva.

Analysis and Design of a secure WLAN solution for Cobre Las Cruces

Cobre Las Cruces is a renowned copper mining company located in Sevilla, with unexpected problems in wireless communications that have a direct affectation in production. Therefore, the main goals are to improve the WiFi infrastructure, to secure it and to detect and prevent from attacks and from the installation of rogue (and non-authorized) APs. All of that integrated with the current ICT infrastructure.This project has been divided into four phases, although only two of them have been included into the TFC; they are the analysis of the current situation and the design of a WLAN solution.Once the analysis part was finished, some weaknesses were detected. Subjects such as lack of connectivity and control, ignorance about installed WiFi devices and their localization and state and, by and large, the use of weak security mechanisms were some of the problems found. Additionally, due to the fact that the working area became larger and new WiFi infrastructures were added, the first phase took more time than expected.As a result of the detailed analysis, some goals were defined to solve and it was designed a centralized approach able to cope with them. A solution based on 802.11i and 802.1x protocols, digital certificates, a probe system running as IDS/IPS and ligthweight APs in conjunction with a Wireless LAN Controller are the main features.

A two-stage approach for tonic identification in indian art music

In this paper we propose a new approach for tonic identification in Indian art music and present a proposal for acomplete iterative system for the same. Our method splits the task of tonic pitch identification into two stages. In the first stage, which is applicable to both vocal and instrumental music, we perform a multi-pitch analysis of the audio signal to identify the tonic pitch-class. Multi-pitch analysisallows us to take advantage of the drone sound, which constantlyreinforces the tonic. In the second stage we estimate the octave in which the tonic of the singer lies and is thusneeded only for the vocal performances. We analyse the predominant melody sung by the lead performer in order to establish the tonic octave. Both stages are individually evaluated on a sizable music collection and are shown toobtain a good accuracy. We also discuss the types of errors made by the method.Further, we present a proposal for a system that aims to incrementally utilize all the available data, both audio and metadata in order to identify the tonic pitch. It produces a tonic estimate and a confidence value, and is iterative in nature. At each iteration, more data is fed into the systemuntil the confidence value for the identified tonic is above a defined threshold. Rather than obtain high overall accuracy for our complete database, ultimately our goal is to develop a system which obtains very high accuracy on a subset of the database with maximum confidence.

Long-run substitutability between more and less educated workers: Evidence from U.S. States 1950-1990

We estimate the aggregate long-run elasticity of substitution between more and less educatedworkers (the slope of the demand curve for more relative to less educated workers) at theUS state level. Our data come from the (five)1950-1990 decennial censuses. Our empiricalapproach allows for state and time fixed effects and relies on time and state dependentchild labor and compulsory school attendance laws as instruments for (endogenous) changesin the relative supply of more educated workers. We find the aggregate long-run elasticity ofsubstitution between more and less educated workers to be around 1.5.

Risk aversion and embedding bias

In Selten (1967) ?Strategy Method,? the second mover in the game submits a complete strategy. This basic idea has been exported to nonstrategic experiments, where a participant reports a complete list of contingent decisions, one for each situation or state in a given sequence, out of which one and only one state, randomly selected, will be implemented.In general, the method raises the following concern. If S0 and S1 are two differentsequences of states, and state s is in both S0 and S1, would the participant make the same decision in state s when confronted with S0 as when confronted with S1? If not, the experimental results are suspect of suffering from an ?embedding bias.?We check for embedding biases in elicitation methods of Charles Holt and Susan Laury(Laury and Holt, 2000, and Holt and Laury, 2002), and of the present authors (Bosch-Dom?nech and Silvestre, 1999, 2002, 2006a, b) by appropriately chosen replications of the original experiments. We find no evidence of embedding bias in our work. But in Holt and Laury?s method participants tend to switch earlier to the riskier option when later pairs of lotteries are eliminated from the sequence, suggesting the presence of some embedding bias.

First-passage and escape problems in the Feller process

The Feller process is an one-dimensional diffusion process with linear drift and state-dependent diffusion coefficient vanishing at the origin. The process is positive definite and it is this property along with its linear character that have made Feller process a convenient candidate for the modeling of a number of phenomena ranging from single-neuron firing to volatility of financial assets. While general properties of the process have long been well known, less known are properties related to level crossing such as the first-passage and the escape problems. In this work we thoroughly address these questions.

Action Dominates Valence in Anticipatory Representations in the Human Striatum and Dopaminergic Midbrain

The acquisition of reward and the avoidance of punishment could logically be contingent on either emitting or withholding particular actions. However,the separate pathways inthe striatumfor go and no-go appearto violatethis independence, instead coupling affect and effect. Respect for this interdependence has biased many studies of reward and punishment, so potential action- outcome valence interactions during anticipatory phases remain unexplored. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with healthy human volunteers, we manipulated subjects" requirement to emit or withhold an action independent from subsequent receipt of reward or avoidance of punishment. During anticipation, in the striatum and a lateral region within the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA), action representations dominated over valence representations. Moreover, we did not observe any representation associated with different state values through accumulation of outcomes, challenging a conventional and dominant association between these areas and state value representations. In contrast, a more medial sector of the SN/VTA responded preferentially to valence, with opposite signs depending on whether action was anticipatedto be emitted or withheld. This dominant influence of action requires an enriched notion of opponency between reward and punishment.

First-passage and escape problems in the Feller process

The Feller process is an one-dimensional diffusion process with linear drift and state-dependent diffusion coefficient vanishing at the origin. The process is positive definite and it is this property along with its linear character that have made Feller process a convenient candidate for the modeling of a number of phenomena ranging from single-neuron firing to volatility of financial assets. While general properties of the process have long been well known, less known are properties related to level crossing such as the first-passage and the escape problems. In this work we thoroughly address these questions.

The Spatial Distribution of Spanish Transport Infrastructure between 1860 and 1930

The origin of Spanish regional economic divergence can be traced back at least until the seventeenth century, although its full definition took place during industrialisation. Historians have often included uneven regional infrastructure endowments among the factors that explain divergence among Spanish regions, although no systematic analysis of the spatial distribution of Spanish infrastructure and its determinants has been carried out so far. This paper aims at filling that gap, by offering a description of the regional distribution of the main Spanish transport infrastructure between the middle of the nineteenth century and the Civil War. In addition, it estimates a panel data model to search into the main reasons that explain the differences among the Spanish regional endowments of railways and roads during that period. The outcomes of that analysis indicate that both institutional factors and the physical characteristics of each area had a strong influence on the distribution of transport infrastructure among the Spanish regions.

Beyond pure public and pure private management models: Partial privatization in the European airport industry

The use of private funding and management is enjoying an increasing trend in airports. The literature has not paid enough attention to the mixed management models in this industry, although many European airports take the form of mixed public-private companies, where ownership is shared between public and private sectors. We examine the determinants of the degree of private participation in the European airport sector. Drawing on a sample of the 100 largest European airports, we estimate a multivariate equation in order to determine the role of airport characteristics, fiscal variables, and political factors on the extent of private involvement. Our results confirm the alignment between public and private interests in partially privatized airports. Fiscal constraints and market attractiveness promote private participation. Integrated governance models and the share of network carriers prevent the presence of private ownership, while the degree of private participation appears to be pragmatic rather than ideological.