Modelling Emotional Effects of Music: Key Areas of Improvement

Modelling emotions perceived in music and induced by music has garnered increased attention during the last five years. The present paper attempts to put together observations of the areas that need attention in order to make progress in the modelling emotional effects of music. These broad areas are divided into theory, data and context, which are reviewed separately. Each area is given an overview in terms of the present state of the art and promising further avenues, and the main limitations are presented. In theory, there are discrepancies in the terminology and justifications for particular emotion models and focus. In data, reliable estimation of high-level musical concepts and data collection and evaluation routines require systematic attention. In context, which is the least developed area of modelling, the primary area of improvement is incorporating musical context (music genres) into the modelling emotions. In a broad sense, better acknowledgement of music consumption and everyday life context, such as the data provided by social media, may offer novel insights into the modelling emotional effects of music

Phase Shift in the Whitham Zone for the Gurevich-Pitaevskii Special Solution of the Korteweg-de Vries Equation

We get the leading term of the Gurevich-Pitaevskii special solution to the KdV equation in the oscillation zone without using averaging methods.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Two patients with history of STEC-HUS, posttransplant recurrence and complement gene mutations

Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is a disease of microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia and acute renal failure. About 90% of cases are secondary to infections by Escherichia coli strains producing Shiga-like toxins (STEC-HUS), while 10% are associated with mutations in genes encoding proteins of complement system (aHUS). We describe two patients with a clinical history of STEC-HUS, who developed end-stage renal disease (ESRD) soon after disease onset. They received a kidney transplant but lost the graft for HUS recurrence, a complication more commonly observed in aHUS. Before planning a second renal transplantation, the two patients underwent genetic screening for aHUS-associated mutations that revealed the presence of a heterozygous CFI mutation in patient #1 and a heterozygous MCP mutation in patient #2, and also in her mother who donated the kidney. This finding argues that the two cases originally diagnosed as STEC-HUS had indeed aHUS triggered by STEC infection on a genetic background of impaired complement regulation. Complement gene sequencing should be performed before kidney transplantation in patients who developed ESRD following STEC-HUS since they may be undiagnosed cases of aHUS, at risk of posttransplant recurrence. Furthermore, genetic analysis of donors is mandatory before living-related transplantation to exclude carriers of HUS-predisposing mutations. Two patients with a clinical history of D+ hemolytic uremic syndrome associated with Shiga-toxin-producing 0157:H7 E. coli and recurrence in the kidney graft carry heterozygous mutations in the genes encoding complement factor I (patient 1) and membrane cofactor protein (patient 2). © Copyright 2013 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons

Changing musical emotion: A computational rule system for modifying score and performance

CMERS system architecture has been implemented in the programming language scheme, and it uses the improvised music programming environment with the objective to provide researchers with a tool for testing the relationships between musical features and emotion. A music work represented in CMERS uses the music object hierarchy that is based on GTTM's grouping structure and is automatically generated from the phrase boundary markup and MIDI file. The Mode rule type of CMERS converts a note into those of the parallel mode and no change in pitch height occurs when converting to the parallel mode. It is reported that the odds of correctness with CMERS are approximately five times greater than that of DM. The repeated-measures analysis of variance for valence shows a significant difference between systems with F (1, 17) = 45.49, p < .0005 and the interaction between system and quadrant is significant with F (3, 51) = 4.23, p = .01, which indicates that CMERS is extensively more effective at correctly influencing valence than DM. c 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Using sound in multi-touch interfaces to change materiality and touch behavior

Current development in multimodal interfaces allows us to interact with digitally represented objects. Sadly, these representations are often poor due to technical limitations in representing some of the sensorial properties. Here we explore the possibility of overcoming these limitations by exploiting multisensory integration processes and propose a sound-based interaction technique to alter the perceived materiality of a surface being touched and to shape users' touch behavior. The latter can be seen both as a cue of, and as a means to reinforce, the altered perception. We designed a prototype that dynamically alters the texture-related sound feedback based on touch behavior, as in natural surface touch interactions. A user study showed that the frequency of the sound feedback alters texture perception (coldness and material type) and touch behavior (velocity and pressure). We conclude by discussing lessons learnt from this work in terms of HCI applications and questions opened by this research. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s)

Thermodynamic characteristics of the classical n-vector magnetic model in three dimensions

The method of calculating the free energy and thermodynamic characteristics of the classical n-vector three-dimensional (3D) magnetic model at the microscopic level without any adjustable parameters is proposed. Mathematical description is perfomed using the collective variables (CV) method in the framework of the $\rho^4$ model approximation. The exponentially decreasing function of the distance between the particles situated at the N sites of a simple cubic lattice is used as the interaction potential. Explicit and rigorous analytical expressions for entropy,internal energy, specific heat near the phase transition point as functions of the temperature are obtained. The dependence of the amplitudes of the thermodynamic characteristics of the system for $T>T_c$ and $T<T_c$ on the microscopic parameters of the interaction potential are studied for the cases $n=1,2,3$ and $n\to\infty$. The obtained results provide the basis for accurate analysis of the critical behaviour in three dimensions including the nonuniversal characteristics of the system.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Effect of electromagnetic fields on the creation of scalar particles in a flat Robertson-Walker space-time

The influence of electromagnetic fields on the creation of scalar particles from vacuum in a flat Robertson-Walker space-time is studied. The Klein Gordon equation with varying electric field and constant magnetic one is solved. The Bogoliubov transformation method is applied to calculate the pair creation probability and the number density of created particles. It is shown that the electric field amplifies the creation of scalar particles while the magnetic field minimizes it.Comment: Important modifications, 20 pages, To appear in Eurpean Physical Journal C. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1108.033

Mutations in FN1 cause glomerulopathy with fibronectin deposits

Glomerulopathy with fibronectin (FN) deposits (GFND) is an autosomal dominant disease with age-related penetrance, characterized by proteinuria, microscopic hematuria, hypertension, and massive glomerular deposits of FN that lead to end-stage renal failure. The genetic abnormality underlying GFND was still unknown. We hypothesized that mutations in FN1, which encodes FN, were the cause of GFND. In a large Italian pedigree with eight affected subjects, we found linkage with GFND at the FN1 locus at 2q32. We sequenced the FN1 in 15 unrelated pedigrees and found three heterozygous missense mutations, the W1925R, L1974R, and Y973C, that cosegregated with the disease in six pedigrees. The mutations affected two domains of FN (Hep-II domain for the W1925R and the L1974R, and Hep-III domain for the Y973C) that play key roles in FN-cell interaction and in FN fibrillogenesis. Mutant recombinant Hep-II fragments were expressed, and functional studies revealed a lower binding to heparin and to endothelial cells and podocytes compared with wild-type Hep-II and an impaired capability to induce endothelial cell spreading and cytoskeletal reorganization. Overall dominant mutations in FN1 accounted for 40% of cases of GFND in our study group. These findings may help understanding the pathogenesis of proteinuria and glomerular FN deposits in GFND and possibly in more common renal diseases such as diabetic nephropathy, IgA nephropathy, and lupus nephritis. To our knowledge no FN1 mutation causing a human disease was previously reported

Collaborative creativity: The Music Room

In this paper, we reflect on our experience of designing, developing and evaluating interactive spaces for collaborative creativity. In particular, we are interested in designing spaces which allow everybody to compose and play original music. The Music Room is an interactive installation where couples can compose original music by moving in the space. Following the metaphor of love, the music is automatically generated and modulated in terms of pleasantness and intensity, according to the proxemics cues extracted from the visual tracking algorithm. The Music Room was exhibited during the EU Researchers' Night in Trento, Italy