Timbre, Genre, and Polystylism in Sonic the Hedgehog 3

In the soundtrack for the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1992), the genres represented include calypso, funk, carnival, new wave, prog rock, and more. Soundtracks for video games frequently shift genres this way, to create aesthetic themes for different levels or characters. Turning toward an account of the game’s soundtrack as a unified and continuous work, I posit that the music of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 might be understood as analogous to a series of “samples” within a polystylistic whole, following Leydon 2010. Leydon notes that instrumentation “bears the bulk of the semiotic burden” in communicating genre, but stops short of detailing how different instrumental timbres themselves might signify these genres. In my close analysis of two specific levels from Sonic the Hedgehog 3—Ice Cap Zone and Marble Garden Zone—I detail how timbre, as a musical parameter separate from instrumentation, can evoke specific inter-textual and extramusical associations from a listener, based on implied genres in the soundtrack. In doing this, I will show how timbre, a musical parameter that remains overlooked in a great deal of music analysis, might inform and en-hance dialogue in music analyses of genre within video game music and more broadly

Properties of an α-clique approach to obtaining the hub and spoke structure in optimization of transportation systems

The paper is devoted to the analysis of a graph transformation, pertinent for the transport and logistic systems and their planning and management. Namely, we consider, for a given graph, representing some existing transport or logistic system, its transformation to a (non-equivalent) so-called ”hub-and-spoke” structure, known from both literature and practice of transportation and logistics. This structure is supposed to bring benefits in terms of functioning and economic performance of the respective systems. The transformation into the ”hub-and-spoke” is not only non-equivalent (regarding the original graph of the system), but is also, in general, non unique. The structure sought is composed of two kinds of elements - nodes of the graph (stations, airports, havens, etc.), namely: the subgraph of hubs, which, in principle, ought to constitute a complete sub-graph (a clique), and the ”spokes”, i.e. the subsets of nodes, each of which is connected in the ultimate structure only with one of the hubs. The paper proposes a relaxation of the hub-and-spoke structure by allowing the hub subgraph not to be complete, but at least connected, with a definite ”degree of completeness” (alpha), from where the name of ”alpha-clique”. It is shown how such structures can be obtained and what are the resulting benefits for various assumptions, regarding such structures. The benefits are measured here with travel times. The desired structures are sought with an evolutionary algorithm. It is shown on an academic example how the results vary and how the conclusions, relevant for practical purposes, can be drawn from such analyses, done with the methods here presented

Computer-aided monitoring of dynamic changes in socio-economic behaviour of enterprises and regions in Poland during transition to global market economy and new technology push

A network of the human capital and mobility programmeConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Biblioteca Centrale / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal