On Theorem 10 in "On Polar Polytopes and the Recovery of Sparse Representations" (vol 50, pg 2231, 2004)

(c)2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works. Published version: IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 59 (8): 5206-5209, Aug 2013. doi:10.1109/TIT.2013.225929

Analysing Scattering-Based Music Content Analysis Systems: Where's the Music?

Music content analysis (MCA) systems built using scattering transform features are reported quite successful in the GTZAN benchmark music dataset. In this paper, we seek to answer why. We first analyse the feature extraction and classification components of scattering-based MCA systems. This guides us to perform intervention experiments on three factors: train/test partition, classifier and recording spectrum. The partition intervention shows a decrease in the amount of reproduced ground truth by the resulting systems. We then replace the learning algorithm with a binary decision tree, and identify the impact of specific feature dimensions. We finally alter the spectral content related to such dimensions, which reveals that these scattering-based systems exploit acoustic information below 20 Hz to reproduce GTZAN ground truth. The source code to reproduce our experiments is available online

Finding polynomial loop invariants for probabilistic programs

Quantitative loop invariants are an essential element in the verification of probabilistic programs. Recently, multivariate Lagrange interpolation has been applied to synthesizing polynomial invariants. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach. First, we fix a polynomial template as a candidate of a loop invariant. Using Stengle's Positivstellensatz and a transformation to a sum-of-squares problem, we find sufficient conditions on the coefficients. Then, we solve a semidefinite programming feasibility problem to synthesize the loop invariants. If the semidefinite program is unfeasible, we backtrack after increasing the degree of the template. Our approach is semi-complete in the sense that it will always lead us to a feasible solution if one exists and numerical errors are small. Experimental results show the efficiency of our approach.Comment: accompanies an ATVA 2017 submissio

Preservation and Promotion of Opera Cultural Heritage: The Experience of La Scala Theatre

This paper focuses on music and music-related cultural heritage typically preserved by opera houses, starting from the experience achieved during the long-lasting collaboration between La Scala theater and the Laboratory of Music Informatics of the University of Milan. First, we will mention the most significant results achieved by the project in the fields of preservation, information retrieval and dissemination of cultural heritage through computer-based approaches. Moreover, we will discuss the possibilities offered by new technologies applied to the conservative context of an opera house, including: the multi-layer representation of music information to foster the accessibility of musical content also by non-experts; the adoption of 5G networks to deliver spherical videos of live events, thus opening new scenarios for cultural heritage enjoyment and dissemination; deep learning approaches both to improve internal processes (e.g., back-office applications for music information retrieval) and to offer advanced services to users (e.g., highly-customized experiences)

Impaired recognition and regulation of disgust is associated with distinct but partially overlapping patterns of decreased gray matter volume in the ventroanterior insula

Background The ventroanterior insula is implicated in the experience, expression, and recognition of disgust; however, whether this brain region is required for recognizing disgust or regulating disgusting behaviors remains unknown. Methods We examined the brain correlates of the presence of disgusting behavior and impaired recognition of disgust using voxel-based morphometry in a sample of 305 patients with heterogeneous patterns of neurodegeneration. Permutation-based analyses were used to determine regions of decreased gray matter volume at a significance level p <=.05 corrected for family-wise error across the whole brain and within the insula. Results Patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia were most likely to exhibit disgusting behaviors and were, on average, the most impaired at recognizing disgust in others. Imaging analysis revealed that patients who exhibited disgusting behaviors had significantly less gray matter volume bilaterally in the ventral anterior insula. A region of interest analysis restricted to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia patients alone confirmed this result. Moreover, impaired recognition of disgust was associated with decreased gray matter volume in the bilateral ventroanterior and ventral middle regions of the insula. There was an area of overlap in the bilateral anterior insula where decreased gray matter volume was associated with both the presence of disgusting behavior and impairments in recognizing disgust. Conclusions These findings suggest that regulating disgusting behaviors and recognizing disgust in others involve two partially overlapping neural systems within the insula. Moreover, the ventral anterior insula is required for both processes

Finding music in music data : a summary of the DaCaRyH Project

The international research project, “Data science for the study of calypso-rhythm through history” (DaCaRyH), involved a collaboration between ethnomusicologists, computer scientists, and a composer. The primary aim of DaCaRyH was to explore how ethnomusicology could inform data science, and vice versa. Its secondary aim focused on creative applications of the results. This article summarises the results of the project, and more broadly discusses the benefits and challenges in such interdisciplinary research. It concludes with suggestions for reducing the barriers to similar work