Melody Transcription From Music Audio: Approaches and Evaluation

Although the process of analyzing an audio recording of a music performance is complex and difficult even for a human listener, there are limited forms of information that may be tractably extracted and yet still enable interesting applications. We discuss melody--roughly, the part a listener might whistle or hum--as one such reduced descriptor of music audio, and consider how to define it, and what use it might be. We go on to describe the results of full-scale evaluations of melody transcription systems conducted in 2004 and 2005, including an overview of the systems submitted, details of how the evaluations were conducted, and a discussion of the results. For our definition of melody, current systems can achieve around 70% correct transcription at the frame level, including distinguishing between the presence or absence of the melody. Melodies transcribed at this level are readily recognizable, and show promise for practical applications

Advanced Methods for Dose and Regimen Finding During Drug Development: Summary of the EMA/EFPIA Workshop on Dose Finding (London 4-5 December 2014)

Inadequate dose selection for confirmatory trials is currently still one of the most challenging issues in drug development, as illustrated by high rates of late-stage attritions in clinical development and postmarketing commitments required by regulatory institutions. In an effort to shift the current paradigm in dose and regimen selection and highlight the availability and usefulness of well-established and regulatory-acceptable methods, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in collaboration with the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries Association (EFPIA) hosted a multistakeholder workshop on dose finding (London 4-5 December 2014). Some methodologies that could constitute a toolkit for drug developers and regulators were presented. These methods are described in the present report: they include five advanced methods for data analysis (empirical regression models, pharmacometrics models, quantitative systems pharmacology models, MCP-Mod, and model averaging) and three methods for study design optimization (Fisher information matrix (FIM)-based methods, clinical trial simulations, and adaptive studies). Pairwise comparisons were also discussed during the workshop; however, mostly for historical reasons. This paper discusses the added value and limitations of these methods as well as challenges for their implementation. Some applications in different therapeutic areas are also summarized, in line with the discussions at the workshop. There was agreement at the workshop on the fact that selection of dose for phase III is an estimation problem and should not be addressed via hypothesis testing. Dose selection for phase III trials should be informed by well-designed dose-finding studies; however, the specific choice of method(s) will depend on several aspects and it is not possible to recommend a generalized decision tree. There are many valuable methods available, the methods are not mutually exclusive, and they should be used in conjunction to ensure a scientifically rigorous understanding of the dosing rationale

Core reconstruction in pseudopotential calculations

A new method is presented for obtaining all-electron results from a pseudopotential calculation. This is achieved by carrying out a localised calculation in the region of an atomic nucleus using the embedding potential method of Inglesfield [J.Phys. C {\bf 14}, 3795 (1981)]. In this method the core region is \emph{reconstructed}, and none of the simplifying approximations (such as spherical symmetry of the charge density/potential or frozen core electrons) that previous solutions to this problem have required are made. The embedding method requires an accurate real space Green function, and an analysis of the errors introduced in constructing this from a set of numerical eigenstates is given. Results are presented for an all-electron reconstruction of bulk aluminium, for both the charge density and the density of states.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Interatomic potentials for atomistic simulations of the Ti-Al system

Semi-empirical interatomic potentials have been developed for Al, alpha-Ti, and gamma-TiAl within the embedded atomic method (EAM) by fitting to a large database of experimental as well as ab-initio data. The ab-initio calculations were performed by the linear augmented plane wave (LAPW) method within the density functional theory to obtain the equations of state for a number of crystal structures of the Ti-Al system. Some of the calculated LAPW energies were used for fitting the potentials while others for examining their quality. The potentials correctly predict the equilibrium crystal structures of the phases and accurately reproduce their basic lattice properties. The potentials are applied to calculate the energies of point defects, surfaces, planar faults in the equilibrium structures. Unlike earlier EAM potentials for the Ti-Al system, the proposed potentials provide reasonable description of the lattice thermal expansion, demonstrating their usefulness in the molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo studies at high temperatures. The energy along the tetragonal deformation path (Bain transformation) in gamma-TiAl calculated with the EAM potential is in a fairly good agreement with LAPW calculations. Equilibrium point defect concentrations in gamma-TiAl are studied using the EAM potential. It is found that antisite defects strongly dominate over vacancies at all compositions around stoichiometry, indicating that gamm-TiAl is an antisite disorder compound in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 46 pages, 6 figures (Physical Review B, in press

Tool path generation for milling of free form surfaces with feed rate scheduling

Upotreba slobodnih (skulptorskih) površina u procesu projektovanja proizvoda raste po eksponencijalnom nivou kako iz funkcionalnih tako i iz estetskih razloga. U procesu projektovanja i izrade slobodnih površina neizostavna je upotreba CAD/CAM softvera. Dok su geometrijski aspekti projektovanja relativno dobro pokriveni, problemi i dalje ostaju kada je u pitanju stvarna proizvodnja slobodnih površina. Glavni problemi su povezani sa određivanjem odgovarajuće putanje alata koja bi obezbedila zahtevan kvalitet obrađene površine, minimizaciju ukupnog vremena obrade, kontrolu intenziteta sile rezanja itd. U radu je prikazan algoritam za generisanje putanje alata zasnovan na kriterijumu održanja sile rezanja na konstantnu unapred definisanu vrednost za procese 3-osne obrade loptastim glodalom. U tu svrhu je razvijen model za predikciju sile rezanja koji je uključen u algoritam za generisanje putanje alata i softver koji je kompatibilan sa svim CAD/CAM sistemima. Eksperimentalno je potvđeno da predloženi algoritam ima brojne prednosti u odnosu na strategije obrade komercijalnih CAD/CAM softvera.The use of freeform (sculptured) surfaces in the product design process is accelerating at an exponential rate driven by functional as well as esthetics demands. CAD/CAM software is a must in their design and manufacture. While the geometric aspects of the design are relatively wellcovered, issues still remain when it comes to the actual manufacture of freeform surfaces. The major issues are related to the generation of the proper toolpaths that would assure the required surface quality, the minimization of the total maching time, the control of the magnitude of the cutting forces, etc. This paper presents an algotithmic procedure for tool path generation based on the criterion of maintaing the cutting forces at a constant pre-defined level for 3-axis ball end milling processes. To this end, a model for cutting force prediction is formulated and incorporated into the tolpath generation algorithm and software that is compatible with all CAD/CAM systems. It has been experimentally confirmed that the proposed algorithm offers a number advantages over the machining strategies used in commercial CAD/CAM software

Cutting forces prediction: The experimental identification of orthogonal cutting coefficients

U radu je prikazana procedura za određivanje skupa parametara rezanja testovima ortogonalnog struganja koji se koristi za predikciju sila i momenta rezanja. Eksperimenti su izvođeni za kombinaciju materijala obratka (Č4320) i reznog alata (Č9780). Prvi korak u predikciji sila se odnosi na razmatranje relativno jednostavnog procesa ortogonalnog rezanja, da bi se rezultati analize dalje koristili kao osnova za razvoj mnogo opštijeg slučaja kosog rezanja. Sve operacije rezanja dele iste principe mehanike rezanja, ali njihova geometrija i kinematika se razlikuju. Usvojeni linearni model sile uključuje sile usled smicanja i ivične sile. Ukupna sila se određuje na osnovu konkretne geometrije alata sumiranjem po svim aktivnim elementarnim sečivima.In this paper the cutting coefficients were identified applying the orthogonal cutting mechanics, which are used in the cutting forces and torque prediction. The experiments were performed for material combination of the workpiece (16MnCr5) and tool (HSS-E, EMo5Co5). The first step in the forces prediction acting on a cutting tool is to consider a relatively simple orthogonal cutting process in order to continue to use the results of this analysis as a base for the development of a much more general case of oblique cutting. All cutting operations share the same cutting mechanics principles, but their geometry and kinematics are different. The accepted linear forces model includes both components, due to shearing and ploughing. The total forces are calculated based on the tool geometry by summing all active discretized cutting edges

A qualitative study on the effects of psychoactive substance use upon artistic creativity

Background: Psychoactive substance use has often been claimed to help generate and facilitate the artistic creative process. Aims: The present study explored the role of artists’ substance use in their creative processes and their efforts to balance between enhancement and relaxation. Methods: Semi-structured interviews concerning the artistic creative process and the role of psychoactive substance use were recorded with 72 artists and analyzed using content analysis. The participants were classified according to their substance use in three groups (Cannabis Group, Alcohol Group, and Control Group). Results: Results show that both alcohol and cannabis were used to facilitate creativity and the emotional states that are necessary for the artistic creative process. Participants in the Control group reported that listening to music might function as a mind-altering tool. It was also found that for some artists, substance use is not only characteristic to creation, but it is also part of their everyday lives. Conclusion: Artists are aware of the balancing phenomenon during the artistic creative process. Whether psychoactive substance(s) or other environmental stimuli (such as music) are used to reach the required effect appears to depend upon the individual

Tool path generation for milling of free form surfaces with feed rate scheduling

Upotreba slobodnih (skulptorskih) površina u procesu projektovanja proizvoda raste po eksponencijalnom nivou kako iz funkcionalnih tako i iz estetskih razloga. U procesu projektovanja i izrade slobodnih površina neizostavna je upotreba CAD/CAM softvera. Dok su geometrijski aspekti projektovanja relativno dobro pokriveni, problemi i dalje ostaju kada je u pitanju stvarna proizvodnja slobodnih površina. Glavni problemi su povezani sa određivanjem odgovarajuće putanje alata koja bi obezbedila zahtevan kvalitet obrađene površine, minimizaciju ukupnog vremena obrade, kontrolu intenziteta sile rezanja itd. U radu je prikazan algoritam za generisanje putanje alata zasnovan na kriterijumu održanja sile rezanja na konstantnu unapred definisanu vrednost za procese 3-osne obrade loptastim glodalom. U tu svrhu je razvijen model za predikciju sile rezanja koji je uključen u algoritam za generisanje putanje alata i softver koji je kompatibilan sa svim CAD/CAM sistemima. Eksperimentalno je potvđeno da predloženi algoritam ima brojne prednosti u odnosu na strategije obrade komercijalnih CAD/CAM softvera.The use of freeform (sculptured) surfaces in the product design process is accelerating at an exponential rate driven by functional as well as esthetics demands. CAD/CAM software is a must in their design and manufacture. While the geometric aspects of the design are relatively wellcovered, issues still remain when it comes to the actual manufacture of freeform surfaces. The major issues are related to the generation of the proper toolpaths that would assure the required surface quality, the minimization of the total maching time, the control of the magnitude of the cutting forces, etc. This paper presents an algotithmic procedure for tool path generation based on the criterion of maintaing the cutting forces at a constant pre-defined level for 3-axis ball end milling processes. To this end, a model for cutting force prediction is formulated and incorporated into the tolpath generation algorithm and software that is compatible with all CAD/CAM systems. It has been experimentally confirmed that the proposed algorithm offers a number advantages over the machining strategies used in commercial CAD/CAM software

Negative Feedback for Music Personalization

Next-item recommender systems are often trained using only positive feedback with randomly-sampled negative feedback. We show the benefits of using real negative feedback both as inputs into the user sequence and also as negative targets for training a next-song recommender system for internet radio. In particular, using explicit negative samples during training helps reduce training time by ~60% while also improving test accuracy by ~6%; adding user skips as additional inputs also can considerably increase user coverage alongside slightly improving accuracy. We test the impact of using a large number of random negative samples to capture a 'harder' one and find that the test accuracy increases with more randomly-sampled negatives, but only to a point. Too many random negatives leads to false negatives that limits the lift, which is still lower than if using true negative feedback. We also find that the test accuracy is fairly robust with respect to the proportion of different feedback types, and compare the learned embeddings for different feedback types.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ACM UMAP 202

Supervised and Unsupervised Learning of Audio Representations for Music Understanding

In this work, we provide a broad comparative analysis of strategies for pre-training audio understanding models for several tasks in the music domain, including labelling of genre, era, origin, mood, instrumentation, key, pitch, vocal characteristics, tempo and sonority. Specifically, we explore how the domain of pre-training datasets (music or generic audio) and the pre-training methodology (supervised or unsupervised) affects the adequacy of the resulting audio embeddings for downstream tasks. We show that models trained via supervised learning on large-scale expert-annotated music datasets achieve state-of-the-art performance in a wide range of music labelling tasks, each with novel content and vocabularies. This can be done in an efficient manner with models containing less than 100 million parameters that require no fine-tuning or reparameterization for downstream tasks, making this approach practical for industry-scale audio catalogs. Within the class of unsupervised learning strategies, we show that the domain of the training dataset can significantly impact the performance of representations learned by the model. We find that restricting the domain of the pre-training dataset to music allows for training with smaller batch sizes while achieving state-of-the-art in unsupervised learning -- and in some cases, supervised learning -- for music understanding. We also corroborate that, while achieving state-of-the-art performance on many tasks, supervised learning can cause models to specialize to the supervised information provided, somewhat compromising a model's generality