A Zoomable Mapping of a Musical Parameter Space Using Hilbert Curves

The final publication is available at Computer Music Journal via http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/COMJ_a_0025

Contrasting Epidemic Histories Reveal Pathogen-Mediated Balancing Selection on Class II MHC Diversity in a Wild Songbird

The extent to which pathogens maintain the extraordinary polymorphism at vertebrate Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes via balancing selection has intrigued evolutionary biologists for over half a century, but direct tests remain challenging. Here we examine whether a well-characterized epidemic of Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis resulted in balancing selection on class II MHC in a wild songbird host, the house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus). First, we confirmed the potential for pathogen-mediated balancing selection by experimentally demonstrating that house finches with intermediate to high multi-locus MHC diversity are more resistant to challenge with Mycoplasma gallisepticum. Second, we documented sequence and diversity-based signatures of pathogen-mediated balancing selection at class II MHC in exposed host populations that were absent in unexposed, control populations across an equivalent time period. Multi-locus MHC diversity significantly increased in exposed host populations following the epidemic despite initial compromised diversity levels from a recent introduction bottleneck in the exposed host range. We did not observe equivalent changes in allelic diversity or heterozygosity across eight neutral microsatellite loci, suggesting that the observations reflect selection rather than neutral demographic processes. Our results indicate that a virulent pathogen can exert sufficient balancing selection on class II MHC to rescue compromised levels of genetic variation for host resistance in a recently bottlenecked population. These results provide evidence for Haldane's long-standing hypothesis that pathogens directly contribute to the maintenance of the tremendous levels of genetic variation detected in natural populations of vertebrates

Interactive EC control of synthesized timbre

Perhaps the biggest limitation of interactive EC is the fitness evaluation bottleneck, caused by slow user evaluation and leading to small populations and user fatigue. In this study these problems are addressed through the proposal of new user interface techniques for interactive EC, which allow faster evaluation of large numbers of indi- viduals and the combination of interactive with noninteractive evaluation. For the first time in the interactive EC literature a set of rigorous usability experiments compares these techniques with existing interactive EC and non-EC interfaces, for the application domain of sound synthesis. The results show that a new user interface for interactive EC improves performance, and further experiments lead to refinement of its design. The experimental protocol shows, again for the first time, that formal usability ex- periments are useful in the interactive EC setting. Statistically significant results are obtained on clearly-defined performance metrics, and the protocol is general enough to be of potential interest to all interactive EC researchers.Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technologyau, ti, ke OR 26/10/1