Interactive Music and Synchronous Reactive Programming

This paper presents Skini, a programming methodology and an execution environment for interactive structured music. With this system, the composer programs his scores in the HipHop.js synchronous reactive language. They are then executed, or played, in live concerts, in interaction with the audience. The system aims at helping composers to find a good balance between the determinism of the compositions and the nondeterminism of the interactions with the public. Each execution of a Skini score yields to a different but aesthetically consistent interpretation. This work raises many questions in the musical fields. How to combine composition and interaction? How to control the musical style when the audience influences what is to play next? What are the possible connections with generative music? These are important questions for the Skini system but they are out of the scope of this paper that focuses exclusively on the computer science aspects of the system. From that perspective, the main questions are how to program the scores and in which language? General purpose languages are inappropriate because their elementary constructs (i.e., variables, functions, loops, etc.) do not match the constructions needed to express music and musical constraints. We show that synchronous programming languages are a much better fit because they rely on temporal constructs that can be directly used to represent musical scores and because their malleability enables composers to experiment easily with artistic variations of their initial scores. The paper mostly focuses on scores programming. It exposes the process a composer should follow from his very first musical intuitions up to the generation of a musical artifact. The paper presents some excerpts of the programming of a classical music composition that it then precisely relates to an actual recording. Examples of techno music and jazz are also presented, with audio artifact, to demonstrate the versatility of the system. Finally, brief presentations of past live concerts are presented as an evidence of viability of the system

Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbilTS) framework : a solution for building complex multimodal data capture and interactive systems

Contemporary Data Capture and Interactive Systems (DCIS) systems are tied in with various technical complexities such as multimodal data types, diverse hardware and software components, time synchronisation issues and distributed deployment configurations. Building these systems is inherently difficult and requires addressing of these complexities before the intended and purposeful functionalities can be attained. The technical issues are often common and similar among diverse applications. This thesis presents the Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbiITS) framework, a generic solution to address the technical complexities in building DCISs. The proposed solution is an abstract software framework that can be extended and customised to any application requirements. UbiITS includes all fundamental software components, techniques, system level layer abstractions and reference architecture as a collection to enable the systematic construction of complex DCISs. This work details four case studies to showcase the versatility and extensibility of UbiITS framework’s functionalities and demonstrate how it was employed to successfully solve a range of technical requirements. In each case UbiITS operated as the core element of each application. Additionally, these case studies are novel systems by themselves in each of their domains. Longstanding technical issues such as flexibly integrating and interoperating multimodal tools, precise time synchronisation, etc., were resolved in each application by employing UbiITS. The framework enabled establishing a functional system infrastructure in these cases, essentially opening up new lines of research in each discipline where these research approaches would not have been possible without the infrastructure provided by the framework. The thesis further presents a sample implementation of the framework on a device firmware exhibiting its capability to be directly implemented on a hardware platform. Summary metrics are also produced to establish the complexity, reusability, extendibility, implementation and maintainability characteristics of the framework.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grants - EP/F02553X/1, 114433 and 11394

DIVE on the internet

This dissertation reports research and development of a platform for Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). It has particularly focused on two major challenges: supporting the rapid development of scalable applications and easing their deployment on the Internet. This work employs a research method based on prototyping and refinement and promotes the use of this method for application development. A number of the solutions herein are in line with other CVE systems. One of the strengths of this work consists in a global approach to the issues raised by CVEs and the recognition that such complex problems are best tackled using a multi-disciplinary approach that understands both user and system requirements. CVE application deployment is aided by an overlay network that is able to complement any IP multicast infrastructure in place. Apart from complementing a weakly deployed worldwide multicast, this infrastructure provides for a certain degree of introspection, remote controlling and visualisation. As such, it forms an important aid in assessing the scalability of running applications. This scalability is further facilitated by specialised object distribution algorithms and an open framework for the implementation of novel partitioning techniques. CVE application development is eased by a scripting language, which enables rapid development and favours experimentation. This scripting language interfaces many aspects of the system and enables the prototyping of distribution-related components as well as user interfaces. It is the key construct of a distributed environment to which components, written in different languages, connect and onto which they operate in a network abstracted manner. The solutions proposed are exemplified and strengthened by three collaborative applications. The Dive room system is a virtual environment modelled after the room metaphor and supporting asynchronous and synchronous cooperative work. WebPath is a companion application to a Web browser that seeks to make the current history of page visits more visible and usable. Finally, the London travel demonstrator supports travellers by providing an environment where they can explore the city, utilise group collaboration facilities, rehearse particular journeys and access tourist information data

Interim research assessment 2003-2005 - Computer Science

This report primarily serves as a source of information for the 2007 Interim Research Assessment Committee for Computer Science at the three technical universities in the Netherlands. The report also provides information for others interested in our research activities

Patterns for Providing Real-Time Guarantees in DOC Middleware - Doctoral Dissertation, May 2002

The advent of open and widely adopted standards such as Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) [47] has simplified and standardized the development of distributed applications. For applications with real-time constraints, including avionics, manufacturing, and defense systems, these standards are evolving to include Quality-of-Service (QoS) specifications. Operating systems such as Real-time Linux [60] have responded with interfaces and algorithms to guarantee real-time response; similarly, languages such as Real-time Java [59] include mechanisms for specifying real-time properties for threads. However, the middleware upon which large distributed applications are based has not yet addressed end-to-end guarantees of QoS specifications. Unless this challenge can be met, developers must resort to ad hoc solutions that may not scale or migrate well among different platforms. This thesis provides two contributions to the study of real-time Distributed Object Computing (DOC) middleware. First, it identifies potential bottlenecks and problems with respect to guaranteeing real-time performance in contemporary middleware. Experimental results illustrate how these problems lead to incorrect real-time behavior in contemporary middleware platforms. Second, this thesis presents designs and techniques for providing real-time QoS guarantees in DOC middleware in the context of TAO [6], an open-source and widely adopted implementation of real-time CORBA. Architectural solutions presented here are coupled with empirical evaluations of end-to-end real-time behavior. Analysis of the problems, forces, solutions, and consequences are presented in terms of patterns and frame-works, so that solutions obtained for TAO can be appropriately applied to other real-time systems