Acoustic event detection for multiple overlapping similar sources

Many current paradigms for acoustic event detection (AED) are not adapted to the organic variability of natural sounds, and/or they assume a limit on the number of simultaneous sources: often only one source, or one source of each type, may be active. These aspects are highly undesirable for applications such as bird population monitoring. We introduce a simple method modelling the onsets, durations and offsets of acoustic events to avoid intrinsic limits on polyphony or on inter-event temporal patterns. We evaluate the method in a case study with over 3000 zebra finch calls. In comparison against a HMM-based method we find it more accurate at recovering acoustic events, and more robust for estimating calling rates.Comment: Accepted for WASPAA 201

Standardization and Control for Confounding in Observational Studies: A Historical Perspective

Control for confounders in observational studies was generally handled through stratification and standardization until the 1960s. Standardization typically reweights the stratum-specific rates so that exposure categories become comparable. With the development first of loglinear models, soon also of nonlinear regression techniques (logistic regression, failure time regression) that the emerging computers could handle, regression modelling became the preferred approach, just as was already the case with multiple regression analysis for continuous outcomes. Since the mid 1990s it has become increasingly obvious that weighting methods are still often useful, sometimes even necessary. On this background we aim at describing the emergence of the modelling approach and the refinement of the weighting approach for confounder control.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-STS453 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Legendrian contact homology and nondestabilizability

We provide the first example of a Legendrian knot with nonvanishing contact homology whose Thurston-Bennequin invariant is not maximal.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Higher-dimensional linking integrals

We derive an integral formula for the linking number of two submanifolds of the n-sphere S^n, of the product S^n x R^m, and of other manifolds which appear as "nice" hypersurfaces in Euclidean space. The formulas are geometrically meaningful in that they are invariant under the action of the special orthogonal group on the ambient space.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

THE ECONOMICS OF COMMUNITY GROWTH: AN IMPACT MODEL

Community/Rural/Urban Development,