A survey of tagging techniques for music, speech and environmental sound

Sound tagging has been studied for years. Among all sound types, music, speech, and environmental sound are three hottest research areas. This survey aims to provide an overview about the state-of-the-art development in these areas.We discuss about the meaning of tagging in different sound areas at the beginning of the journey. Some examples of sound tagging applications are introduced in order to illustrate the significance of this research. Typical tagging techniques include manual, automatic, and semi-automatic approaches.After reviewing work in music, speech and environmental sound tagging, we compare them and state the research progress to date. Research gaps are identified for each research area and the common features and discriminations between three areas are discovered as well. Published datasets, tools used by researchers, and evaluation measures frequently applied in the analysis are listed. In the end, we summarise the worldwide distribution of countries dedicated to sound tagging research for years.

Natural improvements of geochemical conditions of acid sulfate soils caused by free tidal inundation and its effects on the mangrove seedlings

Acid sulfate soils (ASS) are one of the stressor factors that cause many mangrove restoration projects to fail. Achieving successful rehabilitation in an ASS affected area requires an understanding of the geochemical conditions that influence the establishment and growth of mangrove seedlings. This study evaluated the effect of tidal inundation on geochemical conditions on sub layer to better understand their impacts on the density, establishment, and growth of mangrove seedlings. This study also examined the geochemical conditions under which mangrove seedlings can establish naturally, and/or be replanted in abandoned aquaculture ponds. The study area was in an area of abandoned aquaculture ponds situated in the Mare District, adjacent to Bone Bay, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.The pH, pHfox, redox potential, organic content, water soluble sulfate, SKCl, SPOS, and grain size of the soil from the sediment core at + 10 - 15 cm depth near roots were measured using. Pyrite analysis were conducted for the top and sub sediments. The density, establishment, and the relative root growth of Rhizophoraceae were also determined. Free tidal inundation at abandoned pond sites improved the sediment quality. The high density, establishment, and growth of mangrove seedlings were characterized by freely drained areas with a higher pH (field and oxidisable), lower organic content, and high proportion of silt/clay. Higher density and growth also correlated to reduced environments. Sulfur species did not influence the density, establishment, and growth of the seedlings directly. The supply of propagules from the mangrove stands, or access from good waterways were also important for seedlings to establish naturally.

Participatory content creation and collective intelligence in Rio de Janeiro's favelas [Virtual presentation]

This proposal combines ethnographic techniques and discourse studies to investigating a collective of people engaged with audiovisual productions who collaborate in Curta Favela’s workshops in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. ‘Favela’ is often translated simply as ‘slum’ or ‘shantytown’, but these terms connote negative characteristics such as shortage, poverty, and deprivation referring to favelas which end up stigmatizing these low income suburbs. Curta Favela (Favela Shorts) is an independent project which all participants join to use photography and participatory audiovisual production as a tool for social change and raising consciousness. As cameras are not affordable for favelas dwellers, Curta Favela’s volunteers teach favela residents how they can use their mobile phones and compact cameras to take pictures and make movies, and afterwards, how they can edit the data using free editing video software programs and publish it on the Internet. To record audio, they use their mp3 or mobile phones. The main aim of this study is to shed light not only on how this project operates, but also to highlight how collective intelligence can be used as a way of fighting against the lack of basic resources.

Participatory content creation and collective intelligence in Rio de Janeiro's favelas

This proposal combines ethnographic techniques and discourse studies to investigate a collective of people engaged with audiovisual productions who collaborate in Curta Favela’s workshops in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. ‘Favela’ is often translated simply as ‘slum’ or ‘shantytown’, but these terms connote negative characteristics such as shortage, poverty, and deprivation which end up stigmatizing these low income suburbs. Curta Favela (Favela Shorts) is an independent project in which all participants join to use photography and participatory audiovisual production as tools for social change and to raise consciousness. As cameras are not affordable for favela dwellers, Curta Favela’s volunteers teach favela residents how they can use their mobile phones and compact cameras to take pictures and make movies, and afterwards, how they can edit the data using free editing video software programs and publish it on the Internet. To record audio, they use their mp3 or mobile phones. The main aim of this study is to shed light not only on how this project operates, but also to highlight how collective intelligence can be used as a way of fighting against a lack of basic resources.

Markers of cutaneous human papillomavirus infection in individuals with tumor-free skin, actinic keratoses, and squamous cell carcinoma

Separately, actinic keratosis (AK) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) have been associated with cutaneous human papillomavirus (HPV) infections. To further explore the association between HPV infection and SCC development, we determined markers of cutaneous HPV infection within a single population in persons with precursor lesions (AK), cancerous lesions (SCC), and without. Serum and plucked eyebrow hairs were collected from 57 tumor-free controls, 126 AK, and 64 SCC cases. Presence of HPV L1 and E6 seroreactivity and viral DNA were determined for HPV types 5, 8, 15, 16, 20, 24, and 38. Significant positive associations with increasing severity of the lesions (controls, AK, and SCC, respectively) were observed for overall HPV L1 seropositivity (13%, 26%, and 37%) and for HPV8 (4%, 17%, and 30%). In parallel, the proportion of L1 seropositive individuals against multiple HPV types increased from 14% to 39% and 45%. The overall E6 seroreactivity, however, tended to decline with AK and SCC, especially for HPV8 (21%, 11%, and 2%). HPV DNA positivity was most prevalent in the AK cases (54%) compared with the SCC cases (44%) and the tumor-free controls (40%). Among all participants, there was a positive trend between overall HPV DNA positivity and L1 seropositivity, but not E6 seropositivity. Taken together, our data suggest that cutaneous HPV infections accompanied by detectable HPV DNA in eyebrow hairs and HPV L1 seropositivity, but not E6 seropositivity, are associated with an increased risk of AK and SCC.

Preface to the proceedings of the 16th Computational Techniques and Applications Conference

CTAC2012 was the 16th biennial Computational Techniques and Applications Conference, and took place at Queensland University of Technology from 23 - 26 September, 2012. The ANZIAM Special Interest Group in Computational Techniques and Applications is responsible for the CTAC meetings, the first of which was held in 1981.

First-principles prediction of metal-free magnetism and intrinsic half-metallicity in graphitic carbon nitride

Transition metal-free magnetism and half-metallicity recently has been the subject of intense research activity due to its potential in spintronics application. Here we, for the first time, demonstrate via density functional theory that the most recently experimentally realized graphitic carbon nitride (g-C4N3) displays a ferromagnetic ground state. Furthermore, this novel material is predicted to possess an intrinsic half-metallicity never reported to date. Our results highlight a new promising material toward realistic metal-free spintronics application.

Representation of assertions in clinical free-­text using SNOMED CT

Information retrieval (IR) by clinicians in the healthcare setting is critical for informing clinical decision-making. However, a large part of this information is in the form of free-text and inhibits clinical decision support and effective healthcare services. This makes meaningful use of clinical free-­text in electronic health records (EHRs) for patient care a difficult task. Within the context of IR, given a repository of free-­text clinical reports, one might want to retrieve and analyse data for patients who have a known clinical finding.

Continuous and non-intrusive identity verification in real-time environments based on free-text keystroke dynamics

Internet services are important part of daily activities for most of us. These services come with sophisticated authentication requirements which may not be handled by average Internet users. The management of secure passwords for example creates an extra overhead which is often neglected due to usability reasons. Furthermore, password-based approaches are applicable only for initial logins and do not protect against unlocked workstation attacks. In this paper, we provide a non-intrusive identity verification scheme based on behavior biometrics where keystroke dynamics based-on free-text is used continuously for verifying the identity of a user in real-time. We improved existing keystroke dynamics based verification schemes in four aspects. First, we improve the scalability where we use a constant number of users instead of whole user space to verify the identity of target user. Second, we provide an adaptive user model which enables our solution to take the change of user behavior into consideration in verification decision. Next, we identify a new distance measure which enables us to verify identity of a user with shorter text. Fourth, we decrease the number of false results. Our solution is evaluated on a data set which we have collected from users while they were interacting with their mail-boxes during their daily activities.

Likelihood‐free inference for transmission rates of nosocomial pathogens

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Case study: Estimating transmission rates of nosocomial pathogens Models and methods Data analysis and results Discussion References

Optical techniques for real-time binary multiplication

An optical system which performs the multiplication of binary numbers is described and proof-of-principle experiments are performed. The simultaneous generation of all partial products, optical regrouping of bit products, and optical carry look-ahead addition are novel features of the proposed scheme which takes advantage of the parallel operations capability of optical computers. The proposed processor uses liquid crystal light valves (LCLVs). By space-sharing the LCLVs one such system could function as an array of multipliers. Together with the optical carry look-ahead adders described, this would constitute an optical matrix-vector multiplier.

Non-intrusive continuous user behaviour analysis using computerized systems

There are different ways to authenticate humans, which is an essential prerequisite for access control. The authentication process can be subdivided into three categories that rely on something someone i) knows (e.g. password), and/or ii) has (e.g. smart card), and/or iii) is (biometric features). Besides classical attacks on password solutions and the risk that identity-related objects can be stolen, traditional biometric solutions have their own disadvantages such as the requirement of expensive devices, risk of stolen bio-templates etc. Moreover, existing approaches provide the authentication process usually performed only once initially. Non-intrusive and continuous monitoring of user activities emerges as promising solution in hardening authentication process: iii-2) how so. behaves. In recent years various keystroke dynamic behavior-based approaches were published that are able to authenticate humans based on their typing behavior. The majority focuses on so-called static text approaches, where users are requested to type a previously defined text. Relatively few techniques are based on free text approaches that allow a transparent monitoring of user activities and provide continuous verification. Unfortunately only few solutions are deployable in application environments under realistic conditions. Unsolved problems are for instance scalability problems, high response times and error rates. The aim of this work is the development of behavioral-based verification solutions. Our main requirement is to deploy these solutions under realistic conditions within existing environments in order to enable a transparent and free text based continuous verification of active users with low error rates and response times.

A snapshot of radiation therapy techniques and technology in Queensland : an aid to mapping undergraduate curriculum

Introduction: Undergraduate students studying the Bachelor of Radiation Therapy at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) attend clinical placements in a number of department sites across Queensland. To ensure that the curriculum prepares students for the most common treatments and current techniques in use in these departments, a curriculum matching exercise was performed. Methods: A cross-sectional census was performed on a pre-determined “Snapshot” date in 2012. This was undertaken by the clinical education staff in each department who used a standardized proforma to count the number of patients as well as prescription, equipment, and technique data for a list of tumour site categories. This information was combined into aggregate anonymized data. Results: All 12 Queensland radiation therapy clinical sites participated in the Snapshot data collection exercise to produce a comprehensive overview of clinical practice on the chosen day. A total of 59 different tumour sites were treated on the chosen day and as expected the most common treatment sites were prostate and breast, comprising 46% of patients treated. Data analysis also indicated that intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) use is relatively high with 19.6% of patients receiving IMRT treatment on the chosen day. Both IMRT and image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) indications matched recommendations from the evidence. Conclusion: The Snapshot method proved to be a feasible and efficient method of gathering useful

Free-surface flow past arbitrary topography and an inverse approach for wave-free solutions

An efficient numerical method to compute nonlinear solutions for two-dimensional steady free-surface flow over an arbitrary channel bottom topography is presented. The approach is based on a boundary integral equation technique which is similar to that of Vanden-Broeck's (1996, J. Fluid Mech., 330, 339-347). The typical approach for this problem is to prescribe the shape of the channel bottom topography, with the free-surface being provided as part of the solution. Here we take an inverse approach and prescribe the shape of the free-surface a priori while solving for the corresponding bottom topography. We show how this inverse approach is particularly useful when studying topographies that give rise to wave-free solutions, allowing us to easily classify eleven basic flow types. Finally, the inverse approach is also adapted to calculate a distribution of pressure on the free-surface, given the free-surface shape itself.

Conclusion

Grasslands occupy approximately half of the ice-free land area of the world, make up about 70 percent of the world's agricultural area, and are an important agricultural resource, particularly in areas where people are among the most food insecure. Despite their significant potential for carbon (C) sequestration and emission reductions, they are currently not included in international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The chapters in this book have presented new data on management systems that could sequester C in the soil or biomass, assessed the policy and economic aspects of C sequestration in grassland soils, and evaluated limitations and those techniques required to capitalize on grassland C sequestration as a viable component of mitigation strategy.