Communicating the ideas and attitudes of spying in film music: A social semiotic approach

Taking the example of two 1960s popular spy films this paper explores how social semiotics can make a contribution to the analysis of film music. Following other scholars who have sought to create inventories of sound meanings to help us break down the way that music communicates, this paper explores how we can draw on the principles of Hallidayan functional grammar to present an inventory of meaning potentials in sound. This provides one useful way to describe the semiotic resources available to composers to allow them to communicate quite specific ideas, attitudes and identities through combinations of different sounds and sound qualities, by presenting them as systems of meaning rather than as lists of connotations. Here we apply this to the different uses of music and sound in Dr No and The Ipcress Files which allows us to show how we can reveal different ideologies of spying

An efficient distributed algorithm for computing minimal hitting sets

Computing minimal hitting sets for a collection of sets is an important problem in many domains (e.g., Spectrum-based Fault Localization). Being an NP-Hard problem, exhaustive algorithms are usually prohibitive for real-world, often large, problems. In practice, the usage of heuristic based approaches trade-off completeness for time efficiency. An example of such heuristic approaches is STACCATO, which was proposed in the context of reasoning-based fault localization. In this paper, we propose an efficient distributed algorithm, dubbed MHS2, that renders the sequential search algorithm STACCATO suitable to distributed, Map-Reduce environments. The results show that MHS2 scales to larger systems (when compared to STACCATO), while entailing either marginal or small run time overhead

A comparison study of concentric screening versus conventional AM screening and FM screening in offset printing

A new screening technology from Artwork Systems, Concentric screening, was evaluated against conventional AM and FM Staccato screening. The main feature of Concentric screening is to have very small concentric white circles inside AM halftone dots. Test targets were used in order to get information about different aspects of screening, such as: sensitivity to changes in ink film thickness; color gamut size, particularly for pastel colors; and detail rendering. A comparison was made between AM, FM, and Concentric screening. The results indicate that Concentric tints are more resistant to ink variation than conventional AM screening. Thus, the dot gain stability behavior was closer to FM Screening than to AM screening when ink levels are increased. Regarding color gamut, although there were differences in the expected direction, conclusions are uncertain because of inking variability between the press runs. However, micro-photographs from tints indicate that high resolution screens (FM and Concentric) have a thinner layer of ink on the dots when compared to AM screening. This results in improved color saturation and insensitivity to inking changes. Finally, in terms of contrast and resolution, results show no visually significant differences between the different screenings

Star-Cross’d Lovers: Shakespeare and Prokofiev’s pas-de-deux in “Romeo and Juliet”

This article analyses the structure of Prokofiev's ballet score 'Romeo and Juliet' as an intersemiotic translation of Shakespeare's play

New sounds and extended composition techniques

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This commentary supports my PhD composition portfolio. The composition processes of each piece are related to my central research questions, which concern the creation of new sounds using overtone-based scales and extended instrumental techniques. I have developed four main conceptual composition themes and these are represented in the thirteen compositions in the portfolio. In this commentary I consider how each composition was developed around these conceptual themes.Nomura Foundation, Japan for a research grant, Brunel Graduate School for the Vice Chancellor’s Travel Prizes (2010 and 2012), and for the PRSF and Bliss Trust Composer Bursarie

Beating the Air. Phenomenological remarks on the semiotics of conducting.

The subject of the article is conducting as typically known from the classical symphonic practice. The question to be discussed is: In what respect is the conductor’s beat properly to be understood as ”signing” within the frames of a sign language, and as such a proper object of semiotic analysis. My approach to the topic is primarily phenomenological. It makes analytical comments on the task of the conductor; to the very nature of the cooperative and communicative framework embedding the conductor and the musicians; and hence to the constitutional conditions for conducting. The conclusion is that in many important respects conducting is not a matter of signing and there is no such thing as a conductor’s sign language. It will be outlined how the connection between music, musicians and conductor is based on analogies between music, corporeality and onto-temporalit

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

Letter from the Editor / Whalesong Staff -- Strategic Pathways / Fin. Aid. Dir. / ALI Retreat -- From the Vault: Humans versus Zombies -- Study Away -- Student Gov. Update / Strategic Pathways Cont. -- UAS Mourns Reed McWilliams -- Health Corner / My Friend Reed -- A Time to Remember / ALI Retreat Cont. -- The Green Dot Initiative / The Hunting Grounds -- Campus Safety -- Calendar and Comics

Chaoskampf

Excerpt: The road to Camp On High was a two-lane highway that snaked uneasily up the side of Cedar Mountain. Quinn sat in the back of the van, next to a window that looked out into empty space. Somehow, the other kids were sleeping through this, three neat rows of lolling heads, ear buds dangling. Earlier in the ride, sturdy evergreens had covered the mountainside, jutting upward and waiting to catch the van that would, any second-Quinn was convinced-careen over the edge. But by now the trees had grown fragile and sparse, exposing gashes of red-orange rock and promising nothing