Polus: The Design and Development of a New, Mechanically Bowed String Instrument Ensemble

This paper details the creation, design, implementation and uses of a series of new mechanically bowed string instruments. These instruments have been designed with the objective of allowing for multiple parameters of musical expressivity, as well as including the physical and spatial features of the instruments to be integral aspects of their perception as instruments and sonic objects. This paper focuses on the hardware design, software implementation, and present musical uses of the ensemble.fals

Can a niche-market captive-wildlife facility place a low-profile region on the tourism map? An example from Western Australia

Rural areas often present special problems in terms of tourism development owing to a lack product, market access and infrastructure. This paper presents the findings of a case study focusing on the central southern wheat belt of Western Australia, in an area known as Dryandra Country. This area embarked on a tourism development initiative centred on a woodland and its wildlife tourism product. The aim was to develop the woodland as an internationally significant nature-based destination. This was attempted partly through constructing a captive-wildlife tourism facility, Barna Mia, housing some rare local fauna. Research during 2003 found that, while Barna Mia provided a highly satisfying experience for its visitors, there was little indication that it was progressing toward the international tourism icon status as intended. Further efforts to develop a co-ordinated regional product also appeared to be slow owing to factors relating to management of Barna Mia and tourism development in the wider region. This paper explores the issues as they were in 2003 and identifies key factors influencing the progress of tourism development in a low-profile region

Enhancing object contrast using augmented depth improves mobility in patients implanted with a retinal prosthesis

Purpose: Prosthetic vision shows promise for improving performance in orientation and mobility tasks. To date, prosthetic vision research has occurred mainly in high-contrast (e.g., black/white) environments with limited investigation of performance in environments with low contrast. In retinal implants, vision processing is critical for scene understanding including detecting objects of low contrast with their environment, and ensuring their visibility. The ability to detect objects that are poorly contrasted is impaired with the state-of-the-art vision processing, i.e., Intensity-based visual representations. We evaluated the effectiveness of an Augmented Depth-based vision processing algorithm (ADVP) compared to Intensity-based vision processing (IVP) and System Off (SO) for avoiding low-contrast trip hazards in retinal prosthetic vision. Methods: Two participants with profound vision loss (bare light perception) due to retinitis pigmentosa who were implanted with a 24-channel retinal prosthesis (400 or 600 μm diameter) into the suprachoroidal space.<br /> <br /> Participants traversed a straight corridor (2.2 x 7.5 meters; dark floor, white walls) with dark ground-based obstacles that varied in number, size and placement. The presentation order was randomized for Visual Representation and the obstacle characteristics. Participants 1 and 2 completed 60 and 25 traversals,respectively, over a two-day period. The primary outcome measure was the number of contacts with the objects and walls per traversal. Results: ADVP (P1 n=21, mean=.714±.784; P2 n=12, mean=1.33±1.44) was associated with significantly fewer contacts than IVP (P1 n=22, mean=1.18±.907, p=.025; P2 n=7, mean=3.14±1.77, p=.025) and SO (P1 n=17, mean=1.76±1.20, p=.002; P2 n=6, mean=6.17±3.55, p=.001) for both participants. No significant difference was evident between IVP and SO in the number of collisions for either P1 (p=.237) or P2 (p=.067). Conclusions: Vision processing techniques that provide scene understanding through enhanced depth perception can improve the performance of a retinal prosthesis for detecting and avoiding low-contrast trip hazards compared to the standard Intensity-based visual representation and System Off. These findings highlight the need for robust vision processing methods in retinal prostheses especially given the display limitations of current devices