Knowledge-based identification of music suited for places of interest

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40558-014-0004-xPlace is a notion closely linked with the wealth of human experience, and invested by values, attitudes, and cultural influences. In particular, many places are strongly related to music, which contributes to shaping the perception and meaning of a place. In this paper we propose a computational approach to identify musicians and music suited for a place of interest (POI)––which is based on a knowledge-based framework built upon the DBpedia ontology––and a graph-based algorithm that scores musicians with respect to their semantic relatedness with a POI and suggests the top scoring ones. Through empirical experiments we show that users appreciate and judge the musician recommendations generated by the proposed approach as valuable, and perceive compositions of the suggested musicians as suited for the POIs.This work was supported by the Spanish Government (TIN201128538C02) and the Regional Government of Madrid (S2009TIC1542)

The Construction of Heavy Metal Identity through Heritage Narratives: A Case Study of Extreme Metal Bands in the North of England

Extreme and black metal is a music genre infused with ideologies of elitism, nationalism and exaggerated masculinity. In this paper, we explore the ways in which four bands from the north of England – Winterfylleth, Wodensthrone, Old Corpse Road and Oakenshield – construct mythologies, heritage narratives and identity through their own reflections on their music, metal and myths. These extreme metal bands in the North of England work inside the symbolic boundaries of their scene and exist within the imagined communities of their region. That is, the bands construct mythologies based around masculinity and around elitism, but also about “northernness.

Ontology-based identification of music for places

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36309-2_37Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism in Innsbruck, Austria, January 22-25, 2013Place is a notion closely linked with the wealth of human experience, and invested by values, attitudes, and cultural influences. In particular, many places are strongly linked to music, which contributes to shaping the perception and the meaning of a place. In this paper we propose a computational approach for identifying musicians and music suited for a place of interest (POI). We present a knowledge-based framework built upon the DBpedia ontology, and a graph-based algorithm that scores musicians with respect to their semantic relatedness to a POI and suggests the top scoring ones. We found that users appreciate and judge as valuable the musician suggestions generated by the proposed approach. Moreover, users perceived compositions of the suggested musicians as suited for the POIs

The Físchlár-News-Stories system: personalised access to an archive of TV news

The “Físchlár” systems are a family of tools for capturing, analysis, indexing, browsing, searching and summarisation of digital video information. Físchlár-News-Stories, described in this paper, is one of those systems, and provides access to a growing archive of broadcast TV news. Físchlár-News-Stories has several notable features including the fact that it automatically records TV news and segments a broadcast news program into stories, eliminating advertisements and credits at the start/end of the broadcast. Físchlár-News-Stories supports access to individual stories via calendar lookup, text search through closed captions, automatically-generated links between related stories, and personalised access using a personalisation and recommender system based on collaborative filtering. Access to individual news stories is supported either by browsing keyframes with synchronised closed captions, or by playback of the recorded video. One strength of the Físchlár-News-Stories system is that it is actually used, in practice, daily, to access news. Several aspects of the Físchlár systems have been published before, bit in this paper we give a summary of the Físchlár-News-Stories system in operation by following a scenario in which it is used and also outlining how the underlying system realises the functions it offers

Traces of the (m)other: deconstructing hegemonic historical narrative in Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona's Os Sertões

This article focuses on the way in which renowned São Paulo-based theatre company Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona deconstructs hegemonic historical narrative in their 2000 - 2007 25 hour-long production of Euclides da Cunha’s seminal Brazilian novel Os sertões (“Rebellion in the Backlands”), an account of the War of Canudos (1896-1897), the first major act of State terrorism carried out by the nascent Brazilian Federal Government on the country’s subaltern population. The Teat(r)o Oficina’s epic adaptation fuses events from the colonial period, the military dictatorship and contemporary 21st Century São Paulo to relate the repetitive cycles of misappropriation, oppression and resistance that have characterized the history of Brazil and its people over the centuries. However, any fatalistic view of victimhood as an essential aspect of Brazilian subjectivity is radically challenged by the vibrant, rhythmic, material impact of the theatrical super-signs underpinning the performance text. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s notion of the semiotic - the pre-linguistic, illogical, rhythmical materialism of language intimately related to a primordial relationship with the abject mother – I shall suggest that it is the rhythmic, libidinal force of the performance and its extensive use of the cultural manifestations of Brazil’s subaltern population that imbues Os Sertões with the silent presence-as-absence of the abject Brazilian (M)Other – the Black, Indigenous and Mestiza matriarchal line whose alternative discourse is often barred from hegemonic accounts of Brazilian historiography. Her silent heritage is embodied on stage by the members of the Oficina, who reclaim an alienating national heritage for themselves by transforming the often tragic tale of Brazil’s past into a joyous celebration of tenacious vitality

Sound for Fantasy and Freedom

Sound is an integral part of our everyday lives. Sound tells us about physical events in the environ- ment, and we use our voices to share ideas and emotions through sound. When navigating the world on a day-to-day basis, most of us use a balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses to get along. We do this totally naturally and without effort. In the design of computer game experiences, traditionally, most attention has been given to vision rather than the balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses most of us use to navigate the world on a day to day basis. The risk is that this emphasis neglects types of interaction with the game needed to create an immersive experience. This chapter summarizes the relationship between sound properties, GameFlow and immersive experience and discusses two projects in which Interactive Institute, Sonic Studio has balanced perceptual stimuli and game mechanics to inspire and create new game concepts that liberate users and their imagination

Demystifying the educational benefits of different gaming genres

As research continues into the use of computer games for educational purposes, educators still appear reluctant to incorporate them into their teaching. One contributing factor to this reluctance is the lack of information regarding the benefits offered by the different games available today. These differences appear to have been largely overlooked by the academic community, resulting in a lack of information being made available to both the academic and education communities alike. Without this information, educators will find it difficult to determine whether a game will suit their teaching needs, and will continue to avoid using them. This paper studies a selection of games from several different genres, assessing each one in its ability to fulfil a set of previously identified requirements for a good educational resource. The results of the investigation showed that there were indeed strong differences between the genres, allowing for some suggestions to be made regarding their use in education, as well as leaving room for some interesting future work

Geoscience after IT: Part J. Human requirements that shape the evolving geoscience information system

The geoscience record is constrained by the limitations of human thought and of the technology for handling information. IT can lead us away from the tyranny of older technology, but to find the right path, we need to understand our own limitations. Language, images, data and mathematical models, are tools for expressing and recording our ideas. Backed by intuition, they enable us to think in various modes, to build knowledge from information and create models as artificial views of a real world. Markup languages may accommodate more flexible and better connected records, and the object-oriented approach may help to match IT more closely to our thought processes