Towards an emotion-driven interactive music system: ridging the gaps between affect, physiology and sound generation

Report for the scientific sojourn at the Stanford University from January until June 2007. Music is well known for affecting human emotional states, yet the relationship between specific musical parameters and emotional responses is still not clear. With the advent of new human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies, it is now possible to derive emotion-related information from physiological data and use it as an input to interactive music systems. Providing such implicit musical HCI will be highly relevant for a number of applications including music therapy, diagnosis, nteractive gaming, and physiologically-based musical instruments. A key question in such physiology-based compositions is how sound synthesis parameters can be mapped to emotional states of valence and arousal. We used both verbal and heart rate responses to evaluate the affective power of five musical parameters. Our results show that a significant correlation exists between heart rate and the subjective evaluation of well-defined musical parameters. Brightness and loudness showed to be arousing parameters on subjective scale while harmonicity and even partial attenuation factor resulted in heart rate changes typically associated to valence. This demonstrates that a rational approach to designing emotion-driven music systems for our public installations and music therapy applications is possible.

Evaluating sampling strategies and logistic regression methods for modelling complex land cover changes

The role of land cover change as a significant component of global change has become increasingly recognized in recent decades. Large databases measuring land cover change, and the data which can potentially be used to explain the observed changes, are also becoming more commonly available. When developing statistical models to investigate observed changes, it is important to be aware that the chosen sampling strategy and modelling techniques can influence results. We present a comparison of three sampling strategies and two forms of grouped logistic regression models (multinomial and ordinal) in the investigation of patterns of successional change after agricultural land abandonment in Switzerland. Results indicated that both ordinal and nominal transitional change occurs in the landscape and that the use of different sampling regimes and modelling techniques as investigative tools yield different results. Synthesis and applications. Our multimodel inference identified successfully a set of consistently selected indicators of land cover change, which can be used to predict further change, including annual average temperature, the number of already overgrown neighbouring areas of land and distance to historically destructive avalanche sites. This allows for more reliable decision making and planning with respect to landscape management. Although both model approaches gave similar results, ordinal regression yielded more parsimonious models that identified the important predictors of land cover change more efficiently. Thus, this approach is favourable where land cover change pattern can be interpreted as an ordinal process. Otherwise, multinomial logistic regression is a viable alternative.

Reconocimiento de objetos multi-clase basado en descriptores de forma

Este trabajo presenta un sistema para detectar y clasificar objetos binarios según la forma de éstos. En el primer paso del procedimiento, se aplica un filtrado para extraer el contorno del objeto. Con la información de los puntos de forma se obtiene un descriptor BSM con características altamente descriptivas, universales e invariantes. En la segunda fase del sistema se aprende y se clasifica la información del descriptor mediante Adaboost y Códigos Correctores de Errores. Se han usado bases de datos públicas, tanto en escala de grises como en color, para validar la implementación del sistema diseñado. Además, el sistema emplea una interfaz interactiva en la que diferentes métodos de procesamiento de imágenes pueden ser aplicados.

Methods for field detection of resistance to temephos in simuliids. Larval esterase level and topical application of the insecticide to adults

Two practical field methods for indirect detection of simuliid populations resistant to temephos are proposed. The first is based on high esterase activity in resistant larvae and involves adaptations of a filter paper test in which faintly stained spots indicate susceptible populations and strongly stained ones reveal populations resistant to temephos. The second is based on the resistance to the larvicide when adults are topically exposed, and involves the use of diagnostic doses obtained by the comparison between the LD50 for susceptible and resistant populations. The relevance of such methods is discussed in order to help resistance detection in Simulium pertinax Kollar control programmes.

A Modulated Closed Form solution for Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping - A thorough evaluation and comparison to iterative methods based on edge prior knowledge.

The aim of this study is to perform a thorough comparison of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) techniques and their dependence on the assumptions made. The compared methodologies were: two iterative single orientation methodologies minimizing the l2, l1TV norm of the prior knowledge of the edges of the object, one over-determined multiple orientation method (COSMOS) and anewly proposed modulated closed-form solution (MCF). The performance of these methods was compared using a numerical phantom and in-vivo high resolution (0.65mm isotropic) brain data acquired at 7T using a new coil combination method. For all QSM methods, the relevant regularization and prior-knowledge parameters were systematically changed in order to evaluate the optimal reconstruction in the presence and absence of a ground truth. Additionally, the QSM contrast was compared to conventional gradient recalled echo (GRE) magnitude and R2* maps obtained from the same dataset. The QSM reconstruction results of the single orientation methods show comparable performance. The MCF method has the highest correlation (corrMCF=0.95, r(2)MCF =0.97) with the state of the art method (COSMOS) with additional advantage of extreme fast computation time. The l-curve method gave the visually most satisfactory balance between reduction of streaking artifacts and over-regularization with the latter being overemphasized when the using the COSMOS susceptibility maps as ground-truth. R2* and susceptibility maps, when calculated from the same datasets, although based on distinct features of the data, have a comparable ability to distinguish deep gray matter structures.

Disseny d'un Battle Chess 3D (2)

Aquesta memòria descriu el projecte de final de carrera anomenat "Disseny d’un Battle Chess 3D (2)", que tracta de la creació, modelat i animació de peces per a un joc d’escacs en 3 dimensions amb certes temàtiques, i que posteriorment s’integren amb el projecte "Disseny d’un Battle Chess 3D (1)" per a formar un joc interactiu d’escacs en un applet de Java. Es descriuen les eines utilitzades, les fases de creació, tècniques simbòliques, mètodes més emprats, proves sotmeses, limitacions, i finalment s’arriba una conclusió de treball aconseguit.

Quantitative comparison of reconstruction methods for intra-voxel fiber recovery from diffusion MRI.

Validation is arguably the bottleneck in the diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) community. This paper evaluates and compares 20 algorithms for recovering the local intra-voxel fiber structure from diffusion MRI data and is based on the results of the "HARDI reconstruction challenge" organized in the context of the "ISBI 2012" conference. Evaluated methods encompass a mixture of classical techniques well known in the literature such as diffusion tensor, Q-Ball and diffusion spectrum imaging, algorithms inspired by the recent theory of compressed sensing and also brand new approaches proposed for the first time at this contest. To quantitatively compare the methods under controlled conditions, two datasets with known ground-truth were synthetically generated and two main criteria were used to evaluate the quality of the reconstructions in every voxel: correct assessment of the number of fiber populations and angular accuracy in their orientation. This comparative study investigates the behavior of every algorithm with varying experimental conditions and highlights strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This information can be useful not only for enhancing current algorithms and develop the next generation of reconstruction methods, but also to assist physicians in the choice of the most adequate technique for their studies.

Non-immunologic methods of diagnosis of babesiosis

The diagnosis of tick-borne diseases such as babesiosis still depends on observing the parasite in the infected erythrocyte. Microscopic observation is tedious and often problematic in both early and carrier infections. Better diagnostic methods are needed to prevent clinical disease, especially when susceptible cattle are being moved into disease enzootic areas. This study evaluates two techniques for early diagnosis of Babesia bovis infections in cattle, DNA probes specific for the organism and fluorescent probes specific nucleic acid. The radioisotopically labeled DNA probes are used in slot blot hybridizations whith lysed blood samples, not purified DNA. Thusfar, the probe is specific for B. bovis and can detect as few as 1000 B. bovis parasites in 10µl of blood. The specificity of the fluorescent probe depends on the characteristic morphology of the babesia in whole blood samples, as determined microscopically. The fluorescent probe detects as afew as 10,000 B. bovis parasites in 10*l as blood. The application of each method for alboratory and field use is discussed.

New methods for the diagnosis of Babesia bigemina infection

Accurate diagnosis of Babesia bigemina infection, an economically important tick-transmitted protozoan parasite of cattle, is essential in the management of disease control and in epidemiological studies. The currentlyused methods of diagnosis are blood smear examination and serological tests which include agglutination and immunofluorescence tests. These testes have been used the fild but because they lack sensitivity and specificity, never and improved methods of diagnosis are being developed. The quantitative buffy coat (OBC) method, using microhaematocrit tubes and acridine orange staining allows rapid and quicker diagnosis of B. bigemina and other blood parasites compared to light microscopic examination of stained smears. Parasite specific monoclonal antibodies have been used in antigen/antibody capture enzymelinked immunosorbent assays with grater sensitivity and specificity than previously described serological tests. Similary, DNA probes, derived from a repetitive sequence of the B. bigemina genome, offer a method of detecting very small numbers of parasites which are undetectable by conventional microscopy. An extrachromosomal DNA element, present in all the tick-borne protozoan parasites so far tested, provides an accurate means of diferentiating mixed parasite populations in infected animals. These improved methods will greatly facilitate epidemiological studies.

Discontinuous Galerkin methods for the one-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson system

We construct a new family of semi-discrete numerical schemes for the approximation of the one-dimensional periodic Vlasov-Poisson system. The methods are based on the coupling of discontinuous Galerkin approximation to the Vlasov equation and several finite element (conforming, non-conforming and mixed) approximations for the Poisson problem. We show optimal error estimates for the all proposed methods in the case of smooth compactly supported initial data. The issue of energy conservation is also analyzed for some of the methods.