Manifestacions musicals a Barcelona a través de la festa: les entrades reials (segles XV-XVIII)

El tema d'aquesta tesi és el factor de la festa en l'articulació de pràctiques musicals a Barcelona en un context que s'estén des del segle XV al XVIII. Concretament, se centra en les anomenades "Entrades Reials", unes celebracions públiques que s'esdevenien en la primera visita del monarca en motiu del seu jurament dels privilegis de la ciutat. L'elecció d'aquest objecte es justifica en primer lloc pel seu potencial per a connectar amb formes de pensament que incideixen en el debat més genèric sobre els processos d'atribució de significacions a la música. Aquestes celebracions esdevenien una important manifestació cultural col·lectiva en les que s'utilitzaven pràctiques musicals comuns a les altres festes més regulars i que conformaven el sistema general festiu: l'acompanyament del seguici per conjunts de trompetes i tabals, les intervencions musicals en el marc de les representacions realitzades al portal de la ciutat i basades en el teatre sacre medieval, les desfilades dels gremis i confraries, que participaven amb les músiques i els balls dels "entremesos" del Corpus, així com els balls privats als palaus o públics als carrers i places que durant les jornades posteriors completava el conjunt de les activitats.

From symmetry breaking to Poisson Point Process in 2D Voronoi Tessellations: the generic nature of hexagons

We bridge the properties of the regular triangular, square, and hexagonal honeycomb Voronoi tessellations of the plane to the Poisson-Voronoi case, thus analyzing in a common framework symmetry breaking processes and the approach to uniform random distributions of tessellation-generating points. We resort to ensemble simulations of tessellations generated by points whose regular positions are perturbed through a Gaussian noise, whose variance is given by the parameter α2 times the square of the inverse of the average density of points. We analyze the number of sides, the area, and the perimeter of the Voronoi cells. For all valuesα >0, hexagons constitute the most common class of cells, and 2-parameter gamma distributions provide an efficient description of the statistical properties of the analyzed geometrical characteristics. The introduction of noise destroys the triangular and square tessellations, which are structurally unstable, as their topological properties are discontinuous in α = 0. On the contrary, the honeycomb hexagonal tessellation is topologically stable and, experimentally, all Voronoi cells are hexagonal for small but finite noise withα <0.12. For all tessellations and for small values of α, we observe a linear dependence on α of the ensemble mean of the standard deviation of the area and perimeter of the cells. Already for a moderate amount of Gaussian noise (α >0.5), memory of the specific initial unperturbed state is lost, because the statistical properties of the three perturbed regular tessellations are indistinguishable. When α >2, results converge to those of Poisson-Voronoi tessellations. The geometrical properties of n-sided cells change with α until the Poisson- Voronoi limit is reached for α > 2; in this limit the Desch law for perimeters is shown to be not valid and a square root dependence on n is established. This law allows for an easy link to the Lewis law for areas and agrees with exact asymptotic results. Finally, for α >1, the ensemble mean of the cells area and perimeter restricted to the hexagonal cells agree remarkably well with the full ensemble mean; this reinforces the idea that hexagons, beyond their ubiquitous numerical prominence, can be interpreted as typical polygons in 2D Voronoi tessellations.

Do soldiers' lives matter? A view from proportionality

A military operation is about to take place during an ongoing international armed conflict; it can be carried out either by aerial attack, which is expected to cause the deaths of enemy civilians, or by using ground troops, which is expected to cause the deaths of fewer enemy civilians but is expected to result in more deaths of compatriot soldiers. Does the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law impose a duty on an attacker to expose its soldiers to life-threatening risks in order to minimise or avert risks of incidental damage to enemy civilians? If such a duty exists, is it absolute or qualified? And if it is a qualified duty, what considerations may be taken into account in determining its character and scope? This article presents an analytic framework under the current international humanitarian law (IHL) legal structure, following a proportionality analysis. The proposed framework identifies five main positions for addressing the above queries. The five positions are arranged along two ‘axes’: a value ‘axis’, which identifies the value assigned to the lives of compatriot soldiers in relation to lives of enemy civilians; and a justification ‘axis’, which outlines the justificatory bases for assigning certain values to lives of compatriot soldiers and enemy civilians: intrinsic, instrumental or a combination thereof. The article critically assesses these positions, and favours a position which attributes a value to compatriot soldiers’ lives, premised on a justificatory basis which marries intrinsic considerations with circumscribed instrumental considerations, avoiding the indeterminacy and normative questionability entailed by more expansive instrumental considerations.

Challenges in communicating and using ensembles in operational flood forecasting.

Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are now increasingly the norm, flood forecasters are beginning to experiment with using similar ensemble methods. Most of the effort to date has focused on the substantial technical challenges of developing coupled rainfall-runoff systems to represent the full cascade of uncertainties involved in predicting future flooding. As a consequence much less attention has been given to the communication and eventual use of EPS flood forecasts. Drawing on interviews and other research with operational flood forecasters from across Europe, this paper highlights a number of challenges to communicating and using ensemble flood forecasts operationally. It is shown that operational flood forecasters understand the skill, operational limitations, and informational value of EPS products in a variety of different and sometimes contradictory ways. Despite the efforts of forecasting agencies to design effective ways to communicate EPS forecasts to non-experts, operational flood forecasters were often skeptical about the ability of forecast recipients to understand or use them appropriately. It is argued that better training and closer contacts between operational flood forecasters and EPS system designers can help ensure the uncertainty represented by EPS forecasts is represented in ways that are most appropriate and meaningful for their intended consumers, but some fundamental political and institutional challenges to using ensembles, such as differing attitudes to false alarms and to responsibility for management of blame in the event of poor or mistaken forecasts are also highlighted. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society.

Toward seamless prediction: calibration of climate change projections using seasonal forecasts

The CWRF is developed as a climate extension of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) by incorporating numerous improvements in the representation of physical processes and integration of external (top, surface, lateral) forcings that are crucial to climate scales, including interactions between land, atmosphere, and ocean; convection and microphysics; and cloud, aerosol, and radiation; and system consistency throughout all process modules. This extension inherits all WRF functionalities for numerical weather prediction while enhancing the capability for climate modeling. As such, CWRF can be applied seamlessly to weather forecast and climate prediction. The CWRF is built with a comprehensive ensemble of alternative parameterization schemes for each of the key physical processes, including surface (land, ocean), planetary boundary layer, cumulus (deep, shallow), microphysics, cloud, aerosol, and radiation, and their interactions. This facilitates the use of an optimized physics ensemble approach to improve weather or climate prediction along with a reliable uncertainty estimate. The CWRF also emphasizes the societal service capability to provide impactrelevant information by coupling with detailed models of terrestrial hydrology, coastal ocean, crop growth, air quality, and a recently expanded interactive water quality and ecosystem model. This study provides a general CWRF description and basic skill evaluation based on a continuous integration for the period 1979– 2009 as compared with that of WRF, using a 30-km grid spacing over a domain that includes the contiguous United States plus southern Canada and northern Mexico. In addition to advantages of greater application capability, CWRF improves performance in radiation and terrestrial hydrology over WRF and other regional models. Precipitation simulation, however, remains a challenge for all of the tested models.

Attribution of the spatial pattern of CO2-forced sea level change to ocean surface flux changes

Climate models taking part in the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) all predict a global mean sea level rise for the 21st century. Yet the sea level change is not spatially uniform and differs among models. Here we evaluate the role of air–sea fluxes of heat, water and momentum (windstress) to find the spatial pattern associated to each of them as well as the spread they can account for. Using one AOGCM to which we apply the surface flux changes from other AOGCMs, we show that the heat flux and windstress changes dominate both the pattern and the spread, but taking the freshwater flux into account as well yields a sea level change pattern in better agreement with the CMIP5 ensemble mean. Differences among the CMIP5 control ocean temperature fields have a smaller impact on the sea level change pattern.

Irreducible uncertainty in near-term climate projections

Model simulations of the next few decades are widely used in assessments of climate change impacts and as guidance for adaptation. Their non-linear nature reveals a level of irreducible uncertainty which it is important to understand and quantify, especially for projections of near-term regional climate. Here we use large idealised initial condition ensembles of the FAMOUS global climate model with a 1 %/year compound increase in CO2 levels to quantify the range of future temperatures in model-based projections. These simulations explore the role of both atmospheric and oceanic initial conditions and are the largest such ensembles to date. Short-term simulated trends in global temperature are diverse, and cooling periods are more likely to be followed by larger warming rates. The spatial pattern of near-term temperature change varies considerably, but the proportion of the surface showing a warming is more consistent. In addition, ensemble spread in inter-annual temperature declines as the climate warms, especially in the North Atlantic. Over Europe, atmospheric initial condition uncertainty can, for certain ocean initial conditions, lead to 20 year trends in winter and summer in which every location can exhibit either strong cooling or rapid warming. However, the details of the distribution are highly sensitive to the ocean initial condition chosen and particularly the state of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. On longer timescales, the warming signal becomes more clear and consistent amongst different initial condition ensembles. An ensemble using a range of different oceanic initial conditions produces a larger spread in temperature trends than ensembles using a single ocean initial condition for all lead times. This highlights the potential benefits from initialising climate predictions from ocean states informed by observations. These results suggest that climate projections need to be performed with many more ensemble members than at present, using a range of ocean initial conditions, if the uncertainty in near-term regional climate is to be adequately quantified.

Filmmusikens betydelse : En receptionsstudie om hur musik i film bidrar till förståelse

This essay is about film music and how people react in a study where the music and picture comes from two different genres that both has unique conventions, of how the “standard” music ought to be composed. The purpose of this essay is mainly to try and get an understanding of film music’s importance in the movies dramatic structure, and how people react when the conventions of music is broken and two genres are combined into one.The questions that are to be answered in this essay are: *how could music as a tool change the character of a film? *How does the participants, of this inquire, experience the film depending on what music they hear? *And what is it that the participants think that the music brings to the movies narration?The method of this survey is based on a number of participants that have responded on questions of how they experienced the movie, both with music and without. This study has shown that when music and picture, which comes from different genres, interact with each other it tends to create comical features and a sense of that the music has an advantage in terms of the genre that people feel that the film has.

A crise e as novas fronteiras para a indústria fonográfica

The world's record industry has been undergoing a deep crisis over the past years, and has been seeking ways to overcome the fall in legal CD and DVD sales. Paradoxally, consumption of music in its varied forms has been increasing over the same period. Within this adverse scenario, record companies have been trying to adjust their business models so as to encompass other products and services bearing a direct relationship with music. This paper aims at identifying the causes as well as assessing opportunities and initiatives within the market aiming at allowing the record industry to overcome the ongoing crisis. The objective of this paper is to provide an assessment of the current situation and propose alternatives to overcome the crisis, including digital music and the market of concerts and events as potential opportunities for the industry.

A abordagem da capacitação como um modelo alternativo à nova administração pública para as ações estatais : um estudo de caso das políticas públicas dos municípios de Tupandi, Torres e Porto Alegre

Esta tese tem o objetivo de evidenciar a troca de prioridades na formulação de políticas públicas imposta pelas novas pressões e desafios sofridos pelo Estado, bem como pelas demandas e expectativas por parte da sociedade civil concernentes a uma agenda política voltada para questões de justiça, eqüidade e gastos públicos voltados para as necessidades dos cidadãos. Essa investigação fundamenta-se na limitação da abordagem que está na base do processo de reforma seguido pelo Estado a partir da década de oitenta. Conforme o paradigma subjacente (Nova Administração Pública), no processo de reforma, as ações governamentais e, portanto, a definição de políticas públicas, se reduzem a fins utilitários, focados na renda e na obtenção da maximização de resultados quantitativos. No entanto, o novo cenário exige uma ampla demanda por respostas estatais, cujas ações, através das políticas públicas, não podem ser voltadas apenas para a eficiência, mas, também para a eqüidade governamental. Dessa forma, toma-se necessário avançar em direção a um modelo que fundamente as ações estatais - elaboração e implementação de políticas públicas - que considere outras dimensões relevantes além da dimensão econômica. Para tanto, apresenta-se a Abordagem da Capacitação como um modelo alternativo para as ações governamentais mais recentes, preocupadas com a eficiência e a eqüidade. Assim, empregando o estudo de casos múltiplos e a técnica qualitativa de análise descritiva-interpretativa, foi verificado se as políticas públicas dos municípios estão incorporando questões mais relacionadas com a Abordagem da Capacitação, em comparação com aspectos mais instrumentais, como sugere o modelo da Nova Administração Pública. Como resultado, foi constatado que, de modo geral, todos os municípios pesquisados estão incluindo outros aspectos além da eficiência na elaboração de suas políticas públicas e, portanto, estão incorporando questões mais relacionadas com a Abordagem da Capacitação, em comparação com aspectos mais instrumentais, como sugere o modelo da Nova Administração Pública. Diante dessa constatação e dadas as limitações referentes ao modelo da Nova Administração Pública observadas nos casos de Tupandi e de Porto Alegre com respeito ao modelo de gestão implícito e da insuficiência do foco em questões administrativas e gerenciais no desenvolvimento das políticas para tratar problemas atuais verificada em todos os casos, conclui-se que as políticas públicas dos três municípios analisados estão seguindo uma intuição da Abordagem da Capacitação e, dessa forma, esse paradigma proposto representa melhor as ações governamentais mais recentes, preocupadas com a eficiência e a eqüidade, servindo, assim, como um modelo alternativo à Nova Administração Pública para as ações estatais.

Lévi-Strauss Mitológicas: Mito e música entre o largo e o prestíssimo

This study was elaborated based on our research of the work Mithologiques by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), which affirms that languages, indigenous myths and music are related. He proposes that the understanding of myths occurs in a similar manner as with an orchestral score. In the course of his tetralogy we investigated the musical terms used in the analysis and in the division of the chapters, especially in the first volume of his work. Several compositional procedures and forms are named. Composers in pairs are categorized: Sebastian Bach for the code, Ludwig van Beethoven for the message, and Richard Wagner for the myths. In this deduction, we structured in parts: theme and variations, sonata and fugue with the aforementioned composers. Within the greatness of anthropological study, from among over 800 myths, we selected the first five of the indigenous tribe Bororo to discuss within the Theme and Variation segment. In the Sonata part there are two myths with the same theme: The wife of the jaguar which relates to the compositional structure, and four myths about The origin of women. Finally, in the segment related to the Fugue, we collected four myths that address The shortness of life. Honoring the many terms expressed in opposition, contrast, or symmetry under consideration in Levi-Strauss work, we entitled this thesis emphasizing the migration between the tempos Largo and Prestíssimo as these are oppositional presentations in music. Fifteen musical myths accompany the work supported by selected narratives. In light of this we questioned, we questioned: how are incest, murder and other events part of a society that elevates nature as an extension of life itself? And how did Lévi-Strauss think that anthropology harmonized with music? In the preparation of this study, philosophers like Peter Sloterdijk discuss the circular territory of Mythology

Auditory stimulation and cardiac autonomic regulation

Previous studies have already demonstrated that auditory stimulation with music influences the cardiovascular system. In this study, we described the relationship between musical auditory stimulation and heart rate variability. Searches were performed with the Medline, SciELO, Lilacs and Cochrane databases using the following keywords: auditory stimulation, autonomic nervous system, music and heart rate variability. The selected studies indicated that there is a strong correlation between noise intensity and vagal-sympathetic balance. Additionally, it was reported that music therapy improved heart rate variability in anthracycline-treated breast cancer patients. It was hypothesized that dopamine release in the striatal system induced by pleasurable songs is involved in cardiac autonomic regulation. Musical auditory stimulation influences heart rate variability through a neural mechanism that is not well understood. Further studies are necessary to develop new therapies to treat cardiovascular disorders.

História e música: canção popular e conhecimento histórico

Esse trabalho procura levantar e discutir algumas questões teóricas e metodológicas que surgem das relações entre História, música e a canção popular. As transformações teóricas, as novas concepções de material documental e a prática renovada do historiador determinaram a incorporação de novas linguagens pela História. Seguindo nessa trilha, o artigo pretende justamente mostrar, a partir de uma perspectiva interdisciplinar, como as relações entre história, cultura e música popular podem desvendar processos pouco conhecidos e raramente levantados pela historiografia. Para alcançar esse objetivo é necessário ultrapassar a tradicional concepção de história da música e, para isso, tenta-se refletir e organizar alguns elementos para compreender melhor as múltiplas relações entre a canção e o conhecimento histórico. A discussão aponta para a possibilidade e, principalmente, a viabilidade do historiador tratar a música e a canção popular como uma fonte documental importante para mapear e desvendar zonas obscuras da história, sobretudo aquelas relacionadas com os setores subalternos e populares.

Relationship between cardiac autonomic regulation and auditory mechanisms: Importance for growth and development

The literature has already demonstrated that auditory stimulation with music influences the cardiovascular system. In this study, we performed a literature review in order to investigate the relationship between auditory mechanisms and cardiac autonomic regulation. The selected studies indicated that there is a strong correlation between noise intensity and vagal-sympathetic balance. Also, it was reported that music therapy improved heart rate variability in anthracycline-treated breast cancer patients. It was hypothesized that dopamine release in the striatal system induced by pleasure songs are involved in the cardiac autonomic regulation. Further studies are necessary to add new elements in the literature to improve new therapies to treat cardiovascular disorders.

The effects of different styles of musical auditory stimulation on cardiac autonomic regulation in healthy women

The literature investigated the effects of chronic baroque music auditory stimulation on the cardiovascular system. However, it lacks in the literature the acute effects of different styles of music on cardiac autonomic regulation. To evaluate the acute effects of baroque and heavy metal music on heart rate variability (HRV) in women. The study was performed in 21 healthy women between 18 and 30 years old. We excluded persons with previous experience with music instrument and those who had affinity with the song styles. All procedures were performed in the same sound-proof room. We analyzed HRV in the time (standard deviation of normal-to-normal respiratory rate (RR) intervals, root-mean square of differences between adjacent normal RR intervals in a time interval, and the percentage of adjacent RR intervals with a difference of duration greater than 50 ms) and frequency (low frequency [LF], high frequency [HF], and LF/HF ratio) domains. HRV was recorded at rest for 10 min. Subsequently they were exposed to baroque or heavy metal music for 5 min through an earphone. After the first music exposure they remained at rest for more 5 min and them they were exposed again to baroque or heavy metal music. The sequence of songs was randomized for each individual. The power analysis provided a minimal number of 18 subjects. Shapiro-Wilk to verify normality of data and analysis of variance for repeated measures followed by the Bonferroni test for parametric variables and Friedman's followed by the Dunn's post-test for non-parametric distributions. During the analysis of the time-domain indices were not changed. In the frequency-domain analysis, the LF in absolute units was reduced during the heavy metal music stimulation compared to control. Acute exposure to heavy metal music affected the sympathetic activity in healthy women.