Composing for the Performance Space: A practice-based investigation on the design of interfaces for spatial sound and lighting

This thesis presents a compositional portfolio that incorporates design methods for creating interactivity between music, spatialised multichannel audio and lighting. This is presented in the form of musical scores, commentary, and a summary of interfaces for sound spatialisation and lighting, including technical studies that present new design concepts and industrial prototypes. Furthermore, it reveals a new mixed-media format, Sound Canvas, that can be used for the display of interactive music and sound art within galleries. Spatial music has, for some years, been extensively explored in experimental music through different analogue and digital systems. Examples can be found in the electroacoustic works of Schaeffer (e.g., Symphonie Pour un Homme Seul, 1951—performed through the ‘space potentiometer’ device), Stockhausen (e.g., Gesang Der Jünglinge, 1955-56; Oktophonie, 1991), Xenakis (e.g., Bohor, 1962; Hibiki Hana Ma, 1969-70), and in the sound installations of Bernhard Leitner (e.g., Double Arching, 1999; Sonambiente, 2006). The technology available today allows composers to use not only what is commercially available, but also to implement their own systems for spatialisation and performance interaction. The expansion of new audio codecs and microcontroller technology offers new possibilities to be musically explored. Similarly, current stage lighting technology can also be explored further through experimentation. Whereas stage lighting in popular music has been commonly explored by lighting designers, this has not been widely investigated in contemporary music. By using software such as Cycling '74’s Max and open-source hardware platforms such as the Arduino, composers can design their own interfaces for sound-light control. These two forms of expression—space and light—allow composers to move beyond traditional notation and create sound interactions within the performance space, which can become multisensory and yield new forms of artistic expression. Taking practice-based and applied research strategies, this thesis suggests new ideas for the two mediums and narrates the process of development through design. Keywords: sound spatialisation, sound-light interaction, interactive composition, music interface design, performance space, multichannel audio, multisensory music, sound canvas, mixed-media art, kinetic music, kinetic sound art, virtual concerts

Estuarine sediment hydrocarbon-degrading microbial communities demonstrate resilience to nanosilver

Little is currently known about the potential impact of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on estuarine microbial communities. The Colne estuary, UK, is susceptible to oil pollution through boat traffic, and there is the potential for AgNP exposure via effluent discharged from a sewage treatment works located in close proximity. This study examined the effects of uncapped AgNPs (uAgNPs), capped AgNPs (cAgNPs) and dissolved Ag2SO4, on hydrocarbon-degrading microbial communities in estuarine sediments. The uAgNPs, cAgNPs and Ag2SO4 (up to 50 mg L−1) had no significant impact on hydrocarbon biodegradation (80–92% hydrocarbons were biodegraded by day 7 in all samples). Although total and active cell counts in oil-amended sediments were unaffected by silver exposure; total cell counts in non-oiled sediments decreased from 1.66 to 0.84 × 107 g−1 dry weight sediment (dws) with 50 mg L−1 cAgNPs and from 1.66 to 0.66 × 107 g−1 dws with 0.5 mg L−1 Ag2SO4 by day 14. All silver-exposed sediments also underwent significant shifts in bacterial community structure, and one DGGE band corresponding to a member of Bacteroidetes was more prominent in non-oiled microcosms exposed to 50 mg L−1 Ag2SO4 compared to non-silver controls. In conclusion, AgNPs do not appear to affect microbial hydrocarbon-degradation but do impact on bacterial community diversity, which may have potential implications for other important microbial-mediated processes in estuaries

Epstein-Barr virus: clinical and epidemiological revisits and genetic basis of oncogenesis

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is classified as a member in the order herpesvirales, family herpesviridae, subfamily gammaherpesvirinae and the genus lymphocytovirus. The virus is an exclusively human pathogen and thus also termed as human herpesvirus 4 (HHV4). It was the first oncogenic virus recognized and has been incriminated in the causation of tumors of both lymphatic and epithelial nature. It was reported in some previous studies that 95% of the population worldwide are serologically positive to the virus. Clinically, EBV primary infection is almost silent, persisting as a life-long asymptomatic latent infection in B cells although it may be responsible for a transient clinical syndrome called infectious mononucleosis. Following reactivation of the virus from latency due to immunocompromised status, EBV was found to be associated with several tumors. EBV linked to oncogenesis as detected in lymphoid tumors such as Burkitt's lymphoma (BL), Hodgkin's disease (HD), post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD) and T-cell lymphomas (e.g. Peripheral T-cell lymphomas; PTCL and Anaplastic large cell lymphomas; ALCL). It is also linked to epithelial tumors such as nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), gastric carcinomas and oral hairy leukoplakia (OHL). In vitro, EBV many studies have demonstrated its ability to transform B cells into lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs). Despite these malignancies showing different clinical and epidemiological patterns when studied, genetic studies have suggested that these EBV- associated transformations were characterized generally by low level of virus gene expression with only the latent virus proteins (LVPs) upregulated in both tumors and LCLs. In this review, we summarize some clinical and epidemiological features of EBV- associated tumors. We also discuss how EBV latent genes may lead to oncogenesis in the different clinical malignancie

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass