A new implementation of Spat in Max

International audienceIrcam spat~ is a real-time audio engine dedicated to sound spatialization, artificial reverberation, and sound diffusion. This paper introduces a new major revision of the software package (spat~ 5), and its integration in the Max environment. First, we present the newly adopted OSC interface that is used throughout the library for controlling the processors; we discuss the motivations for this choice, the syntax in use, and the potential benefits in terms of us-ability, performances, customization, etc. Then we give an overview of new features introduced in this release, covering Higher Order Ambisonics processing, object-based audio production, enhanced inter-operability with VR or graphics frameworks, etc

Scalable Storage for Digital Libraries

I propose a storage system optimised for digital libraries. Its key features are its heterogeneous scalability; its integration and exploitation of rich semantic metadata associated with digital objects; its use of a name space; and its aggressive performance optimisation in the digital library domain

Spoken content retrieval: A survey of techniques and technologies

Speech media, that is, digital audio and video containing spoken content, has blossomed in recent years. Large collections are accruing on the Internet as well as in private and enterprise settings. This growth has motivated extensive research on techniques and technologies that facilitate reliable indexing and retrieval. Spoken content retrieval (SCR) requires the combination of audio and speech processing technologies with methods from information retrieval (IR). SCR research initially investigated planned speech structured in document-like units, but has subsequently shifted focus to more informal spoken content produced spontaneously, outside of the studio and in conversational settings. This survey provides an overview of the field of SCR encompassing component technologies, the relationship of SCR to text IR and automatic speech recognition and user interaction issues. It is aimed at researchers with backgrounds in speech technology or IR who are seeking deeper insight on how these fields are integrated to support research and development, thus addressing the core challenges of SCR

Recommender Systems

The ongoing rapid expansion of the Internet greatly increases the necessity of effective recommender systems for filtering the abundant information. Extensive research for recommender systems is conducted by a broad range of communities including social and computer scientists, physicists, and interdisciplinary researchers. Despite substantial theoretical and practical achievements, unification and comparison of different approaches are lacking, which impedes further advances. In this article, we review recent developments in recommender systems and discuss the major challenges. We compare and evaluate available algorithms and examine their roles in the future developments. In addition to algorithms, physical aspects are described to illustrate macroscopic behavior of recommender systems. Potential impacts and future directions are discussed. We emphasize that recommendation has a great scientific depth and combines diverse research fields which makes it of interests for physicists as well as interdisciplinary researchers.Comment: 97 pages, 20 figures (To appear in Physics Reports

Quality-aware similarity assessment for entity matching in Web data

One of the key challenges to realize automated processing of the information on the Web, which is the central goal of the Semantic Web, is related to the entity matching problem. There are a number of tools that reliably recognize named entities, such as persons, companies, geographic locations, in Web documents. The names of these extracted entities are, however, non-unique; the same name on different Web pages might or might not refer to the same entity. The entity matching problem concerns of identifying the entities, which are referring to the same real-world entity. This problem is very similar to the entity resolution problem studied in relational databases, however, there are also several differences. Most importantly Web pages often only contain partial or incomplete information about the entities. Similarity functions try to capture the degree of belief about the equivalence of two entities, thus they play a crucial role in entity matching. The accuracy of the similarity functions highly depends on the applied assessment techniques, but also on some specific features of the entities. We propose systematic design strategies for combined similarity functions in this context. Our method relies on the combination of multiple evidences, with the help of estimated quality of the individual similarity values and with particular attention to missing information that is common in Web context. We study the effectiveness of our method in two specific instances of the general entity matching problem, namely the person name disambiguation and the Twitter message classification problem. In both cases, using our techniques in a very simple algorithmic framework we obtained better results than the state-of-the-art methods

Single Cell RNA-Sequencing of Cardiac Progenitor Cells Across Patient Age Populations

Human c-kit+ cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) have seen success in the treatment of heart failure and myocardial dysfunction. However, research has demonstrated the reparative capacity of CPCs appears to be linked to the age of the patient, with younger patients having increased heart function and reduced fibrosis following treatment. We hypothesized that these differences may be driven by differing subtypes of CPCs existing in each donor sample. Using the high-resolution capabilities of single cell RNA-sequencing technologies, we hope to elucidate the different subtypes that may be giving rise to the differences in therapeutic outcomes observed during in vivo studies. In the first study we analyzed the differences between adult CPCs (aCPCs) and neonatal CPCs (nCPCs). In vivo studies indicated injected aCPC had reduced cell retention and cell proliferation due to increased phagocytosis in comparison to nCPCs. We found three distinct subtypes of CPCs following analysis of the data. The two nCPC-enriched clusters correlated strongly with wound healing and cell proliferation, while the third aCPC-enriched cluster indicated some immune response activity. Analysis of selected gene expression in the third cluster indicated reduced expression of CD47, an important anti-phagocytic protein, along with reduced expression of several important growth factor and ECM proteins.6 In the second study we analyzed the differences between pediatric patient populations. Previously published in vivo and in vitro results indicate reduced fibrosis and immune response and increased chemotaxis when using nCPCs in comparison to child CPCs (cCPCs). Subcluster analysis finds cCPC-enriched clusters upregulated in several fibrosis- and immune response-related genes. Clustering of genes indicates genes correlated in chemotaxis to be upregulated in nCPC clusters. We identified the surface proteins versican and ITGA2 to be upregulated in fibrosis-related cluster 6 cells. Flow cytometric analysis using antibodies specific to these proteins identified a cell population with high levels of both proteins, consistent with the gene expression profile identified by the cluster 6 cells. We hope that this research will allow for researchers in the future to better optimize for and predict clinical outcomes prior to injection in autologous CPC-based therapies.M.S

Sawt, Bodies, Species. Sonic Pluralism in Morocco.

In Sawt, Bodies, Species, Gilles Aubry offers an account on sound and listening in Morocco across a wide domain of activities, including musical and artistic expression, sound archives, urban planning, building techniques, seismology, healing practices, industrial extractivism, and ecology. Sawt in Arabic literally means sound and voice. Sound in Morocco thus intimately relates to the body; it never quite corresponds with its modern Western counterpart as a phenomenon separable from the other senses. Sonic pluralism recapitulates Aubry's attempts to think sound and aurality together with modernity and (de-)coloniality. The transformative power of sonic pluralism is expressed in people's acts of listen- ing and sounding, aimed at questioning and shifting social conventions. On the level of ecology, sonic pluralism reveals extra-human agencies that mediate between people and their environment. Drawing on critical Sound Studies, ethnographic research, and artistic practice, Aubry's dense descriptions are complemented by audiovisual essays created in collaboration with local musicians, artists, and scientists

Second Annual Conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems. Abstracts

Abstracts from the conference are presented. The topics covered include the following: next generation software systems and languages; databases, catalogs, and archives; user interfaces/visualization; real-time data acquisition/scheduling; and IRAF/STSDAS/PROS status reports

Online Media Piracy: Convergence, Culture, and the Problem of Media Change

This thesis proposes that there is a symbiotic relationship between the emergence of online media piracy and the industrial, economic and legal changes that have shaped contemporary popular media in the early 21st century. The Internet is at the heart of most recent transformations of the popular media environment, such as the emergence of video-on-demand formats for film and television consumption and the impact this has had on the nature of those media forms. This thesis discusses the powerful role played by online media piracy in shaping these developments, both through changing the expectations of consumers, and the options that are available for distributors of media content. As well as exploring the diverse forms and practices of online media piracy today, this thesis also explores theories of media change, considering how we might understand such piracy as a force underpinning media change, and how the changes it has helped shape might be placed in a broader historical context. To that end, the history and impact of online media piracy are considered alongside other examples, such as the arrival of video recording devices and the expansion of cable television in the 1980s and 90s, and the significance of international trade deals impacting access to media via “geoblocking” and other techniques of access management. Finally, this thesis also examines debates around copyright, and the potential political significance of piracy as a tool for accessing media and culture, viewing online media piracy as a crucial practice appearing at a nexus of industrial and popular interests, tied to technological, economic and legal developments, and to changing consumer behavior and expectations