Eleven : best of 100 Songs Project 2012

Eleven original recordings curated by leading industry figures. This is a compilation album from QUT's 2012 100 Songs project. It's called Eleven: Best of 100 Songs Project 2012 and was released in May 2013. It’s an 11 track album with a bonus track, full of remixed, rerecorded and rejigged tracks from the project that were shortlisted by our friends at MGM Distribution, Mushroom Music, Island Records and Music Sales Australia. The Eleven album is already receiving critical acclaim from Australia's music industry.

100 Songs Project 2012

The Independent Music Project is centred around the development and creation of new music, and includes research into copyright, business models of the future, new technologies, and new audiences. The music industry is undergoing the most radical changes it has faced in almost a century. New digital technologies have made the production, distribution, and promotion of recorded music accessible to anyone with a personal computer. People can now make high-quality digital copies of music and distribute them globally within minutes. Even bastions of the established industries, such as EMI and Columbia, are struggling to make sense of the new industry terrain. The whole employment picture has changed just as radically for people who wish to make a living from music. In Australia, many of the avenues that provided employment for musicians have either disappeared or dramatically shrunk. The advertising industry no longer provides the level of employment it used to prior to the Federal deregulation of the industry in 1992. In many places, new legislative pressures on inner-city and suburban venues have diminished the number of performance spaces that musicians can work in. Just as quickly, new sectors have opened to professional musicians: computer games, ringtones, sound-enabled toys and web advertising all present new opportunities to the enterprising musician. The opportunity to distribute music internationally without being signed to a major label is very attractive to many aspiring and established professionals. No doubt the music industry will face many more challenges as technologies continue to change, as global communication gets easier and faster, and as the challenges to copyright proliferate and change. These challenges cannot be successfully met on a single front. They require research and expertise from all sectors being affected, and this is why the independent music project (IMP) exists.

100 Songs Project 2011

The Independent Music Project is centred around the development and creation of new music, and includes research into copyright, business models of the future, new technologies, and new audiences. The music industry is undergoing the most radical changes it has faced in almost a century. New digital technologies have made the production, distribution, and promotion of recorded music accessible to anyone with a personal computer. People can now make high-quality digital copies of music and distribute them globally within minutes. Even bastions of the established industries, such as EMI and Columbia, are struggling to make sense of the new industry terrain. The whole employment picture has changed just as radically for people who wish to make a living from music. In Australia, many of the avenues that provided employment for musicians have either disappeared or dramatically shrunk. The advertising industry no longer provides the level of employment it used to prior to the Federal deregulation of the industry in 1992. In many places, new legislative pressures on inner-city and suburban venues have diminished the number of performance spaces that musicians can work in. Just as quickly, new sectors have opened to professional musicians: computer games, ringtones, sound-enabled toys and web advertising all present new opportunities to the enterprising musician. The opportunity to distribute music internationally without being signed to a major label is very attractive to many aspiring and established professionals. No doubt the music industry will face many more challenges as technologies continue to change, as global communication gets easier and faster, and as the challenges to copyright proliferate and change. These challenges cannot be successfully met on a single front. They require research and expertise from all sectors being affected, and this is why the independent music project (IMP) exists.

Between Herbals et alia: Intertextuality in Medieval English Herbals

This study reports a corpus-based study of medieval English herbals, which are texts conveying information on medicinal plants. Herbals belong to the medieval medical register. The study charts intertextual parallels within the medieval genre, and between herbals and other contemporary medical texts. It seeks to answer questions where and how herbal texts are linked to each other, and to other medical writing. The theoretical framework of the study draws on intertextuality and genre studies, manuscript studies, corpus linguistics, and multi-dimensional text analysis. The method combines qualitative and quantitative analyses of textual material from three historical special-language corpora of Middle and Early Modern English, one of which was compiled for the purposes of this study. The text material contains over 800,000 words of medical texts. The time span of the material is from c. 1330 to 1550. Text material is retrieved from the corpora by using plant name lists as search criteria. The raw data is filtered through qualitative analysis which produces input for the quantitative analysis, multi-dimensional scaling (MDS). In MDS, the textual space that parallel text passages form is observed, and the observations are explained by a qualitative analysis. This study concentrates on evidence of material and structural intertextuality. The analysis shows patterns of affinity between the texts of the herbal genre, and between herbals and other texts in the medical register. Herbals are most closely linked with recipe collections and regimens of health: they comprise over 95 per cent of the intertextual links between herbals and other medical writing. Links to surgical texts, or to specialised medical texts are very few. This can be explained by the history of the herbal genre: as herbals carry information on medical ingredients, herbs, they are relevant for genres that are related to pharmacological therapy. Conversely, herbals draw material from recipe collections in order to illustrate the medicinal properties of the herbs they describe. The study points out the close relationship between medical recipes and recipe-like passages in herbals (recipe paraphrases). The examples of recipe paraphrases show that they may have been perceived as indirect instruction. Keywords: medieval herbals, early English medicine, corpus linguistics, intertextuality, manuscript studies

Conrad Summenhart's theory of individual rights and its medieval background

This study focuses on the theory of individual rights that the German theologian Conrad Summenhart (1455-1502) explicated in his massive work Opus septipartitum de contractibus pro foro conscientiae et theologico. The central question to be studied is: How does Summenhart understand the concept of an individual right and its immediate implications? The basic premiss of this study is that in Opus septipartitum Summenhart composed a comprehensive theory of individual rights as a contribution to the on-going medieval discourse on rights. With this rationale, the first part of the study concentrates on earlier discussions on rights as the background for Summenhart s theory. Special attention is paid to language in which right was defined in terms of power . In the fourteenth century writers like Hervaeus Natalis and William Ockham maintained that right signifies power by which the right-holder can to use material things licitly. It will also be shown how the attempts to describe what is meant by the term right became more specified and cultivated. Gerson followed the implications that the term power had in natural philosophy and attributed rights to animals and other creatures. To secure right as a normative concept, Gerson utilized the ancient ius suum cuique-principle of justice and introduced a definition in which right was seen as derived from justice. The latter part of this study makes effort to reconstructing Summenhart s theory of individual rights in three sections. The first section clarifies Summenhart s discussion of the right of the individual or the concept of an individual right. Summenhart specified Gerson s description of right as power, taking further use of the language of natural philosophy. In this respect, Summenhart s theory managed to bring an end to a particular continuity of thought that was centered upon a view in which right was understood to signify power to licit action. Perhaps the most significant feature of Summenhart s discussion was the way he explicated the implication of liberty that was present in Gerson s language of rights. Summenhart assimilated libertas with the self-mastery or dominion that in the economic context of discussion took the form of (a moderate) self-ownership. Summenhart discussion also introduced two apparent extensions to Gerson s terminology. First, Summenhart classified right as relation, and second, he equated right with dominion. It is distinctive of Summenhart s view that he took action as the primary determinant of right: Everyone has as much rights or dominion in regard to a thing, as much actions it is licit for him to exercise in regard to the thing. The second section elaborates Summenhart s discussion of the species dominion, which delivered an answer to the question of what kind of rights exist, and clarified thereby the implications of the concept of an individual right. The central feature in Summenhart s discussion was his conscious effort to systematize Gerson s language by combining classifications of dominion into a coherent whole. In this respect, his treatement of the natural dominion is emblematic. Summenhart constructed the concept of natural dominion by making use of the concepts of foundation (founded on a natural gift) and law (according to the natural law). In defining natural dominion as dominion founded on a natural gift, Summenhart attributed natural dominion to animals and even to heavenly bodies. In discussing man s natural dominion, Summenhart pointed out that the natural dominion is not sufficiently identified by its foundation, but requires further specification, which Summenhart finds in the idea that natural dominion is appropriate to the subject according to the natural law. This characterization lead him to treat God s dominion as natural dominion. Partly, this was due to Summenhart s specific understanding of the natural law, which made reasonableness as the primary criterion for the natural dominion at the expense of any metaphysical considerations. The third section clarifies Summenhart s discussion of the property rights defined by the positive human law. By delivering an account on juridical property rights Summenhart connected his philosophical and theological theory on rights to the juridical language of his times, and demonstrated that his own language of rights was compatible with current juridical terminology. Summenhart prepared his discussion of property rights with an account of the justification for private property, which gave private property a direct and strong natural law-based justification. Summenhart s discussion of the four property rights usus, usufructus, proprietas, and possession aimed at delivering a detailed report of the usage of these concepts in juridical discourse. His discussion was characterized by extensive use of the juridical source texts, which was more direct and verbal the more his discussion became entangled with the details of juridical doctrine. At the same time he promoted his own language on rights, especially by applying the idea of right as relation. He also showed recognizable effort towards systematizing juridical language related to property rights.

Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe 900-1200

Review of Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900-1200 by Elizabeth van Houts (Toronto UP, 1999).

‘Enough is enough’: Songs and messages about alcohol in remote Central Australia

This article examines some of the ways in which Australia’s First Peoples have responded to serious community health concerns about alcohol through the medium of popular music. The writing, performing and recording of popular songs about alcohol provide an important example of community-led responses to health issues, and the effectiveness of music in communicating stories and messages about alcohol has been recognised through various government-funded recording projects. This article describes some of these issues in remote Australian Aboriginal communities, exploring a number of complexities that arise through arts-based ‘instrumentalist’ approaches to social and health issues. It draws on the author’s own experience and collaborative work with Aboriginal musicians in Tennant Creek, a remote town in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Mining sentiments from songs using latent dirichlet allocation

Song-selection and mood are interdependent. If we capture a song’s sentiment, we can determine the mood of the listener, which can serve as a basis for recommendation systems. Songs are generally classified according to genres, which don’t entirely reflect sentiments. Thus, we require an unsupervised scheme to mine them. Sentiments are classified into either two (positive/negative) or multiple (happy/angry/sad/...) classes, depending on the application. We are interested in analyzing the feelings invoked by a song, involving multi-class sentiments. To mine the hidden sentimental structure behind a song, in terms of “topics”, we consider its lyrics and use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Each song is a mixture of moods. Topics mined by LDA can represent moods. Thus we get a scheme of collecting similar-mood songs. For validation, we use a dataset of songs containing 6 moods annotated by users of a particular website.

Examining the Effectiveness of Discriminant Function Analysis and Cluster Analysis in Species Identification of Male Field Crickets Based on Their Calling Songs

Traditional taxonomy based on morphology has often failed in accurate species identification owing to the occurrence of cryptic species, which are reproductively isolated but morphologically identical. Molecular data have thus been used to complement morphology in species identification. The sexual advertisement calls in several groups of acoustically communicating animals are species-specific and can thus complement molecular data as non-invasive tools for identification. Several statistical tools and automated identifier algorithms have been used to investigate the efficiency of acoustic signals in species identification. Despite a plethora of such methods, there is a general lack of knowledge regarding the appropriate usage of these methods in specific taxa. In this study, we investigated the performance of two commonly used statistical methods, discriminant function analysis (DFA) and cluster analysis, in identification and classification based on acoustic signals of field cricket species belonging to the subfamily Gryllinae. Using a comparative approach we evaluated the optimal number of species and calling song characteristics for both the methods that lead to most accurate classification and identification. The accuracy of classification using DFA was high and was not affected by the number of taxa used. However, a constraint in using discriminant function analysis is the need for a priori classification of songs. Accuracy of classification using cluster analysis, which does not require a priori knowledge, was maximum for 6-7 taxa and decreased significantly when more than ten taxa were analysed together. We also investigated the efficacy of two novel derived acoustic features in improving the accuracy of identification. Our results show that DFA is a reliable statistical tool for species identification using acoustic signals. Our results also show that cluster analysis of acoustic signals in crickets works effectively for species classification and identification.

Medieval pulse of great earthquakes in the central Himalaya: Viewing past activities on the frontal thrust

The Himalaya has experienced three great earthquakes during the last century1934 Nepal-Bihar, 1950 Upper Assam, and arguably the 1905 Kangra. Focus here is on the central Himalayan segment between the 1905 and the 1934 ruptures, where previous studies have identified a great earthquake between thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Historical data suggest damaging earthquakes in A.D. 1255, 1344, 1505, 1803, and 1833, although their sources and magnitudes remain debated. We present new evidence for a great earthquake from a trench across the base of a 13m high scarp near Ramnagar at the Himalayan Frontal Thrust. The section exposed four south verging fault strands and a backthrust offsetting a broad spectrum of lithounits, including colluvial deposits. Age data suggest that the last great earthquake in the central Himalaya most likely occurred between A.D. 1259 and 1433. While evidence for this rupture is unmistakable, the stratigraphic clues imply an earlier event, which can most tentatively be placed between A.D. 1050 and 1250. The postulated existence of this earlier event, however, requires further validation. If the two-earthquake scenario is realistic, then the successive ruptures may have occurred in close intervals and were sourced on adjacent segments that overlapped at the trench site. Rupture(s) identified in the trench closely correlate with two damaging earthquakes of 1255 and 1344 reported from Nepal. The present study suggests that the frontal thrust in central Himalaya may have remained seismically inactive during the last similar to 700years. Considering this long elapsed time, a great earthquake may be due in the region.

Saber y poder, prodigios ambiguos e interpretación medieval en el Libro de Alexandre y el Poema de Fernán Gonçález

Resumen: Tanto en el Libro de Alexandre como en el Poema de Fernán Gonçález se presentan prodigios de signifi cación ambigua: el eclipse en el LA, el caballero tragado por la tierra y la serpiente voladora en el PFG. Los episodios en que aparecen insertos estos elementos extraordinarios o sobrenaturales ofrecen una serie de similitudes: el temor de los ejércitos y la habilidad retórica que se despliega para reinterpretar el signo, volverlo a favor del héroe y enardecer así a sus hombres. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar estos episodios y su signifi cación en el marco de cada uno de los poemas, centrándonos en los problemas de la interpretación y la asignación de sentido, y la relación entre saber y poder que se postula.

La maurofilia en la poesía épica medieval

Resumen: El hispanista francés Georges Cirot fue el primero en emplear el término “maurofilia literaria” (maurophilie littéraire) en 1938 para referirse a la representación del valor y la nobleza de los moros en la literatura española del siglo XVI. Pero como señaló Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1957, 202), ya en los siglos XIV y XV los castellanos se habían sentido atraídos por los musulmanes de Granada, por su exótica civilización, su lujo en el vestir, la espléndida ornamentación de sus edificios y su modo de cabalgar, armarse y combatir. Francisco Márquez Villanueva (1984, 117-118) indicó que aunque la literatura maurófila del siglo XVI fue elaborada bajo el signo avanzado del humanismo cristiano, cuyas características fueron “el inconformismo y la sensibilidad para toda suerte de realidades en divergencia del mundo oficial”, las raíces de la maurofilia literaria se encuentran en el viejo romancero fronterizo y morisco elaborado en el siglo XV. En su opinión, el Romancero fue la patria de la “maurofilia pura” y es donde encontramos un cuadro de referencias temáticas “hecho de toponimia y onomástica, armas, indumentaria, policromía y cabalgadas” tendiente a caracterizar al moro como un ser refinado y superior. Para María Rosa Lida (1960, 355), en cambio, la imagen caballeresca del moro se remonta a don Juan Manuel, pues en sus obras aparecen las cortes musulmanas como “centros de molicie refinada y suntuosa”. En efecto, en el Libro de los estados se afirma el valor del moro como guerrero y en el Conde Lucanor aparecen una serie de reyes moros magnánimos y discretos. Sin embargo, el árabe como personaje sabio o “ejemplar” figura ya en una de las fuentes del Conde Lucanor, la Disciplina clericalis, obra compuesta a principios del siglo XII por el judío converso Pedro Alfonso. Por otra parte, el análisis de la representación de los moros en textos épicos, Avengalvón en el Poema de mio Cid y Almanzor en la Los siete infantes de Lara, nos permite descubrir un importante e insoslayable antecedente de la maurofilia de los últimos siglos de la Edad Media

El concepto de “texto medieval��� en el trabajo ecdótico : un ejemplo surgido de los avatares en la tradición manuscrita de la “Crónica de Sancho IV”

Resumen: La realidad manuscrita del texto medieval implica asumir la problemática en torno al concepto de texto con el que habrá de trabajar el editor al pretender establecer el texto crítico de una obra determinada. Las diferentes concepciones en torno a dicha ontología textual influyen en el tipo particular de trabajo ecdótico que se pretenda realizar. El artículo pretende, a partir del caso de la edición de la Crónica de Sancho IV, proponer un modelo de edición que contemple las variantes que la obra fue manifestando a lo largo de su tradición con el objetivo de dar cuenta de la naturaleza mutable del texto medieval en función de su intencionalidad política.