Conducting a virtual ensemble with a kinect device

This paper presents a gesture-based interaction technique for the implementation of an orchestra conductor and a virtual ensemble, using a 3D camera-based sensor to capture user’s gestures. In particular, a human-computer interface has been developed to recognize conducting gestures using a Microsoft Kinect device. The system allows the conductor to control both the tempo in the piece played as well as the dynamics of each instrument set independently. In order to modify the tempo in the playback, a time-frequency processing-based algorithmis used. Finally, an experiment was conducted to assess user’s opinion of the system as well as experimentally confirm if the features in the system were effectively improving user experience or not.This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Project No. TIN2010-21089-C03-02 and Project No. IPT-2011-0885-430000 and by the Junta de Andalucia under Project No. P11-TIC-7154. The work has been done at Universidad de Malaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucia Tech

Correction system for polyphonic piano recordings

M.I. Martin-Erdozain, I. Barbancho, A. Rosa-Pujazon, A.M. Barbancho, "Correction system for polyphonic piano recordings", XXVIII Simposium Nacional de la Unión Científica Internacional de Radio, Santiago de Compostela, España, 2013n this paper, a support tool for piano rehearsal is presented. The system analyses a given piano polyphonic recording to find the times, pitch and duration of the notes and figures played, taking into account the possibility of playing more than one note simultaneously as well as covering the whole piano frequency range. In order to do so, the system uses an onset detection algorithm to segment the input signal into partitions which are then analysed in the time and frequency domains. Then, the system correlates the data extracted from the partitions with the score of the original piece, identifying the positions and type of the mistakes performed by the user, and providing her/him with the corresponding feedback. The experiments conducted showed that the application is capable of analysing a given recording and indicate the musician the mistakes made.This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Project No. TIN2010-21089-C03-02 and by the Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio under Project No. TSI-090100-2011-25

Virtual Conductor for String Quartet Practice

This paper presents a system that emulates an ensemble conductor for string quartets. This application has been developed as a support tool for individual and group practice, so that users of any age range can use it to further hone their skills, both for regular musicians and students alike. The virtual conductor designed can offer similar indications to those given by a real ensemble conductor to potential users regarding beat times, dynamics, etc. The application developed allows the user to rehearse his/her performance without the need of having an actual conductor present, and also gives access to additional tools to further support the learning/practice process, such as a tuner or a melody evaluator. The system developed also allows for both solo practice and group practice. A set of tests were conducted to check the usefulness of the application as a practice support tool. A group of musicians from the Chamber Orchestra of Malaga including an ensemble conductor tested the system, and reported to have found it a very useful tool within an educational environment and that it helps to address the lack of this kind of educational tools in a self-learning environment.This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Project No. TIN2010-21089-C03- 02 and Project No. IPT-2011-0885-430000 and by the Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio under Project No. TSI-090100-2011-25

Low-cost step aerobics system with virtual aerobics trainer

In this paper a low-cost step-aerobics instructor simulation system is presented. The proposed system analyses a given song to iden- tify its rhythmic pattern. Subsequently, this rhythmic pattern is used in order to issue a set of steps-aerobics commands to the user, thus simu- lating a training session. The system uses a Wii Balance Board to track exercises performed by users and runs on an Android smartphone. A set of tests were conducted to assess user experience and opinion on the system developed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Improving classification algorithms by considering score series in wireless acoustic sensor networks

The reduction in size, power consumption and price of many sensor devices has enabled the deployment of many sensor networks that can be used to monitor and control several aspects of various habitats. More specifically, the analysis of sounds has attracted a huge interest in urban and wildlife environments where the classification of the different signals has become a major issue. Various algorithms have been described for this purpose, a number of which frame the sound and classify these frames,while others take advantage of the sequential information embedded in a sound signal. In the paper, a new algorithm is proposed that, while maintaining the frame-classification advantages, adds a new phase that considers and classifies the score series derived after frame labelling. These score series are represented using cepstral coefficients and classified using standard machine-learning classifiers. The proposed algorithm has been applied to a dataset of anuran calls and its results compared to the performance obtained in previous experiments on sensor networks. The main outcome of our research is that the consideration of score series strongly outperforms other algorithms and attains outstanding performance despite the noisy background commonly encountered in this kind of application

Optimal Representation of Anuran Call Spectrum in Environmental Monitoring Systems Using Wireless Sensor Networks

The analysis and classification of the sounds produced by certain animal species, notably anurans, have revealed these amphibians to be a potentially strong indicator of temperature fluctuations and therefore of the existence of climate change. Environmental monitoring systems using Wireless Sensor Networks are therefore of interest to obtain indicators of global warming. For the automatic classification of the sounds recorded on such systems, the proper representation of the sound spectrum is essential since it contains the information required for cataloguing anuran calls. The present paper focuses on this process of feature extraction by exploring three alternatives: the standardized MPEG-7, the Filter Bank Energy (FBE), and the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC). Moreover, various values for every option in the extraction of spectrum features have been considered. Throughout the paper, it is shown that representing the frame spectrum with pure FBE offers slightly worse results than using the MPEG-7 features. This performance can easily be increased, however, by rescaling the FBE in a double dimension: vertically, by taking the logarithm of the energies; and, horizontally, by applying mel scaling in the filter banks. On the other hand, representing the spectrum in the cepstral domain, as in MFCC, has shown additional marginal improvements in classification performance.University of Seville: Telefónica Chair "Intelligence Networks

Maldi-Tof mass spectometry as a routine technique for identification of typical and atypical mycobacteria in the Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology

Introducción y Objetivo: Del género Mycobacterium se han descrito más de 120 especies de micobacterias diferentes de crecimiento lento y rápido. Estos microorganismos producen una importante morbilidad en humanos, incluyendo infecciones de tipo pulmonar, en la piel y tejidos blandos y enfermedad diseminada siendo el diagnóstico rápido y preciso es de gran importancia. Material y Métodos: La población de estudio de nuestro trabajo fueron 75 aislados de micobacterias procedentes de cultivo en medio sólido Lowenstein-Jensen. El diagnóstico fue realizado mediante técnicas moleculares de PCR e hibridación inversa: GenoType Mycobacterium CM y GenoType Mycobacterium AS. De forma paralela las cepas se identificaron mediante espectrometría de masas MALDITOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization– Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry). Resultados: La concordancia global de resultados entre la identificación realizada mediante PCR y la tecnología MALDI-TOF fue del 97%, con un coeficiente kappa de correlación de 0.929 (correlación excelente entre 0.081-1.0). Conclusiones: Nuestros resultados indican que es bastante factible incorporar MALDI-TOF MS para la identificación rutinaria de micobacterias en el flujo de trabajo del laboratorio de microbiología clínica.Introduction and aim: in the Mycobacterium genus have been described more than 120 species of Mycobacteria other than growth slow and fast. These microorganisms produce significant morbidity in humans, including type pulmonary infections, skin and soft tissues and disseminated disease being the rapid and precise is of great importance. Material and methods: the study population of our work were 75 isolated Mycobacteria from cultivation in solid Lowenstein-Jensen medium. The diagnosis was made by molecular techniques of PCR and reverse hybridization: GenoType Mycobacterium CM and GenoType Mycobacterium AS. Parallel strains were identified by mass spectrometry MALDITOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry). Results: The overall agreement of results between the identification made by PCR and MALDI-TOF technology was 97, with a coefficient of correlation of 0.929 kappa (excellent correlation between 0.081-1.0). Conclusions: Our results indicate that it is quite feasible to incorporate MALDI-TOF MS for routine identification of Mycobacteria in the clinical microbiology laboratory workflow

El impacto de las políticas de austeridad en los espacios verdes urbanos según la percepción de los usuarios. Estudio de caso en tres ciudades españolas

Esta investigación analiza el efecto de las políticas de austeridad, aplicadas en España en todos los niveles de la administración, sobre la gestión de los parques y jardines de nuestras ciudades. El análisis se basa en los datos obtenidos a partir de encuestas y de visitas a los espacios verdes urbanos de Salamanca, Valladolid y Zamora. Los resultados obtenidos indican que, al contrario de lo que podríamos esperar, el mantenimiento de las áreas verdes de estas ciudades es razonablemente bueno y que la satisfacción de los ciudadanos con su estado actual es bastante elevada

Cooperation in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2006-15617-C03-03 (AmbientNet)Junta de Andalucía P0-6TIC-2298 (SemiWheelNav)Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-02476 (ARTICA

Aspectos de la simetría de las transformaciones integrales en la caracterización de sonidos

La aplicación de técnicas de aprendizaje automático a señales de sonido requiere la caracterización previa de dichas señales. A menudo, la descripción del espectro sonoro se realiza utilizando coeficientes cepstrales. En este trabajo, se compara el desempeño en la obtención de coeficientes cepstrales mediante dos transformaciones integrales, la Transformación discreta de Fourier (DFT) y la Transformación discreta de coseno (DCT). Se puede demostrar que DCT supera a DFT en la tarea de representar los espectros de sonido. Esta mejora se debe a la simetría del espectro y no a ninguna ventaja intrínseca de DCT. Además, las características de MFCC obtenidas con DCT están notablemente menos correlacionadas que las obtenidas con DFT, lo que hará que las funciones MFCC basadas en DCT sean más potentes en algoritmos de clasificación posteriores