Can Musical Emotion Be Quantified With Neural Jitter Or Shimmer? A Novel EEG Based Study With Hindustani Classical Music

The term jitter and shimmer has long been used in the domain of speech and acoustic signal analysis as a parameter for speaker identification and other prosodic features. In this study, we look forward to use the same parameters in neural domain to identify and categorize emotional cues in different musical clips. For this, we chose two ragas of Hindustani music which are conventionally known to portray contrast emotions and EEG study was conducted on 5 participants who were made to listen to 3 min clip of these two ragas with sufficient resting period in between. The neural jitter and shimmer components were evaluated for each experimental condition. The results reveal interesting information regarding domain specific arousal of human brain in response to musical stimuli and also regarding trait characteristics of an individual. This novel study can have far reaching conclusions when it comes to modeling of emotional appraisal. The results and implications are discussed in detail.Comment: 6 pages, 12 figures, Presented in 4th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN) 201

Designing Innovative Craft Enterprises in India: A Framework for Change Makers

Although artisanal crafts and craftsmanship are in high demand globally, the benefits artisans receive are often negligible. The rules of the open market also make it difficult for them to compete. A number of Indian enterprises have introduced innovative organization models to catalyze social change and support artisans’ wellbeing by involving them more directly in the organization. Based on a review of literature on social entrepreneurship and organization design using a design thinking lens, and three case studies on craft enterprises in India, we find that artisans cannot be empowered separately from their communities. Further, any design intervention seeking to bring about social change through artisan participation must be grounded in an in-depth understanding of local context, artisans’ needs, and market dynamics. We contribute new knowledge about the crucial role of the change maker in successfully transforming a design intervention into a sustainable enterprise, and propose an original framework for designing innovative organizations based on effective participation and empowerment of the artisans producing goods for sale