K-Pop Genres: A Cross-Cultural Exploration

The Proceedings can be viewed at: http://www.ppgia.pucpr.br/ismir2013/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Proceedings-ISMIR2013-Final.pdfPoster Session 3Current music genre research tends to focus heavily on classical and popular music from Western cultures. Few studies discuss the particular challenges and issues related to non-Western music. The objective of this study is to improve our understanding of how genres are used and perceived in different cultures. In particular, this study attempts to fill gaps in our understanding by examining K-pop music genres used in Korea and comparing them with genres used in North America. We provide background information on K-pop genres by analyzing 602 genre-related labels collected from eight major music distribution websites in Korea. In addition, we report upon a user study in which American and Korean users annotated genre information for 1894 K-pop songs in order to understand how their perceptions might differ or agree. The results show higher consistency among Korean users than American users demonstrated by the difference in Fleiss’ Kappa values and proportion of agreed genre labels. Asymmetric disagreements between Americans and Koreans on specific genres reveal some interesting differences in the perception of genres. Our findings provide some insights into challenges developers may face in creating global music services.published_or_final_versio

A cross-cultural study of mood in K-POP Songs

Prior research suggests that music mood is one of the most important criteria when people look for music – but the perception of mood may be subjective and can be influenced by many factors including the listeners’ cultural background. In recent years, the number of studies of music mood perceptions by various cultural groups and of automated mood classification of music from different cultures has been increasing. However, there has yet to be a well-established testbed for evaluating cross-cultural tasks in Music Information Retrieval (MIR). Moreover, most existing datasets in MIR consist mainly of Western music and the cultural backgrounds of the annotators were mostly not taken into consideration or were limited to one cultural group. In this study, we built a collection of 1,892 K-pop (Korean Pop) songs with mood annotations collected from both Korean and American listeners, based on three different mood models. We analyze the differences and similarities between the mood judgments of the two listener groups, and propose potential MIR tasks that can be evaluated on this dataset. © Xiao Hu, Jin Ha Lee, Kahyun Choi, J. Stephen Downie.published_or_final_versio

WiMIR: An Informetric Study on Women Authors in ISMIR

Poster session 3: paper no. PS3-29Organized by New York University and Columbia UniversityThe Music Information Retrieval (MIR) community is becoming increasingly aware of a gender imbalance evident in ISMIR participation and publication. This paper reports upon a comprehensive informetric study of the publication, authorship and citation characteristics of female researchers in the context of the ISMIR conferences. All 1,610 papers in the ISMIR proceedings written by 1,910 unique authors from 2000 to 2015 were collected and analyzed. Only 14.1% of all papers were led by female researchers. Temporal analysis shows that the percentage of lead female authors has not improved over the years, but more papers have appeared with female coauthors in very recent years. Topics and citation numbers are also analyzed and compared between female and male authors to identify research emphasis and to measure impact. The results show that the most prolific authors of both genders published similar numbers of ISMIR papers and the citation counts of lead authors in both genders had no significant difference. We also analyzed the collaboration patterns to discover whether gender is related to the number of collaborators. Implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions are proposed on how to continue encouraging and supporting female participation in the MIR field.published_or_final_versio

Baubles, Bangles, and Biotypes: A Critical Review of the use and Abuse of the Biotype Concept

Pest species of insects are notoriously prone to escape the weapons deployed in management efforts against them. This is particularly true in herbivorous insects. When a previously successful tactic fails the insect population has apparently adapted to it and is often considered to be a new or distinct entity, and given the non-formal category ‘biotype’. The entities falling under the umbrella term ‘biotype’ are not consistent either within or between biotypes, and their underlying genetic composition and origins, while generally unknown, are likely heterogeneous within and variable between biotypes. In some cases race or species may be more appropriate referents. Some examples of applications of the concept in the context of host plant resistance are discussed. It is argued here that the term ‘biotype’ and its applications are overly simplistic, confused, have not proved useful in current pest management, and lack predictive power for future management

Priority setting in primary health care - dilemmas and opportunities: a focus group study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Swedish health care authorities use three key criteria to produce national guidelines for local priority setting: severity of the health condition, expected patient benefit, and cost-effectiveness of medical intervention. Priority setting in primary health care (PHC) has significant implications for health costs and outcomes in the health care system. Nevertheless, these guidelines have been implemented to a very limited degree in PHC. The objective of the study was to qualitatively assess how general practitioners (GPs) and nurses perceive the application of the three key priority-setting criteria.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Focus groups were held with GPs and nurses at primary health care centres, where the staff had a short period of experience in using the criteria for prioritising in their daily work.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The staff found the three key priority-setting criteria (severity, patient benefit, and cost-effectiveness) to be valuable for priority setting in PHC. However, when the criteria were applied in PHC, three additional dimensions were identified: 1) viewpoint (medical or patient's), 2) timeframe (now or later), and 3) evidence level (group or individual).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The three key priority-setting criteria were useful. Considering the three additional dimensions might enhance implementation of national guidelines in PHC and is probably a prerequisite for the criteria to be useful in priority setting for individual patients.</p

Rod and Cone Pathway Signalling Is Altered in the P2X7 Receptor Knock Out Mouse

The P2X7 receptor (P2X7-R) is expressed in the retina and brain and has been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. However, whether it is expressed by neurons and plays a role as a neurotransmitter receptor has been the subject of controversy. In this study, we first show that the novel vesicular transporter for ATP, VNUT, is expressed in the retina, verifying the presence of the molecular machinery for ATP to act as neurotransmitter at P2X7-Rs. Secondly we show the presence of P2X7-R mRNA and protein in the retina and cortex and absence of the full length variant 1 of the receptor in the P2X7-R knock out (P2X7-KO) mouse. The role of the P2X7-R in neuronal function of the retina was assessed by comparing the electroretinogram response of P2X7-KO with WT mice. The rod photoreceptor response was found to be similar, while both rod and cone pathway post-photoreceptor responses were significantly larger in P2X7-KO mice. This suggests that activation of P2X7-Rs modulates output of second order retinal neurons. In line with this finding, P2X7-Rs were found in the outer plexiform layer and on inner retinal cell classes, including horizontal, amacrine and ganglion cells. The receptor co-localized with conventional synapses in the IPL and was expressed on amacrine cells post-synaptic to rod bipolar ribbon synapses. In view of the changes in visual function in the P2X7-KO mouse and the immunocytochemical location of the receptor in the normal retina, it is likely the P2X7-R provides excitatory input to photoreceptor terminals or to inhibitory cells that shape both the rod and cone pathway response

Creating the ‘ethics industry': Mary Warnock, in vitro fertilization and the history of bioethics in Britain

Recent decades have seen a shift in the management and discussion of biomedicine. Issues once considered by doctors and scientists are now handled by a diverse array of participants, including philosophers, lawyers, theologians and lay representatives. This new approach, known as ‘bioethics', has become the norm in regulatory committees and public debate. In this article, I argue that bioethics emerged as a valued enterprise in Britain during the 1980s because it fulfilled, and linked, the concerns of several groups. My analysis centres on the moral philosopher Mary Warnock, who chaired a government inquiry into human fertilization and embryology between 1982 and 1984, and became a strong advocate of bioethics. I detail how Warnock's promotion of bioethics tallied with the Conservative government's desire for increased surveillance of hitherto autonomous professions – while fulfilling her own belief that philosophers should engage in public affairs. And I also show that Warnock simultaneously promoted bioethics to doctors and scientists as an essential safeguard against declining political and public trust. This stance, I argue, framed bioethics as a vital intermediary between politics, the public, and biomedicine, and explains the growth and endurance of what the Guardian identified as an ethics industry

Eag and HERG potassium channels as novel therapeutic targets in cancer

Voltage gated potassium channels have been extensively studied in relation to cancer. In this review, we will focus on the role of two potassium channels, Ether à-go-go (Eag), Human ether à-go-go related gene (HERG), in cancer and their potential therapeutic utility in the treatment of cancer. Eag and HERG are expressed in cancers of various organs and have been implicated in cell cycle progression and proliferation of cancer cells. Inhibition of these channels has been shown to reduce proliferation both in vitro and vivo studies identifying potassium channel modulators as putative inhibitors of tumour progression. Eag channels in view of their restricted expression in normal tissue may emerge as novel tumour biomarkers