An Eclectic Combination of Classical and Jazz Idioms: Nikolai Kapustin's Piano Works

The piano music of Nikolai Kapustin is a sophisticated synthesis of classical traditions and jazz styles. He has absorbed jazz styles into standard classical form and his approach to jazz idioms is authentic and original compared to other classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Ligeti, who also wrote jazz-inspired pieces. Kapustin adopted the virtuosic playing of Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum, the unique style of Erroll Garner, and the rich texture and harmony of his experience with big bands. On the other hand, Kapustin’s use of forms conforms to the classical tradition and many of his works recall formal and technical influences of classical composers, especially from Romantic and Russian composers. The Twenty-Four Preludes, Op. 53, published in 1988, is one of Kapustin’s most satisfying works and an ambitious genre to exhibit his extraordinary grasp of both jazz and classical music. The Preludes incorporate a large range of jazz techniques and styles with a variety of rhythms, tempos, and melody as well as the clear structural organization of classical music. A classical pianist performing these works must possess a formidable technique and comprehensive understanding of jazz playing. This study examines on jazz idioms and classical influences in Kapustin’s music and how he combined them to create his own style. The document consists of three parts: biographical information and background, Kapustin’s unique musical voice and influences, and a detailed analysis of the classical and jazz blend found in the Twenty-Four Preludes, Op. 53, including performance considerations. I hope my study will elucidate his compositional brilliance and encourage even more pianists to explore his music

Finite-size scaling analysis of the two-dimensional random transverse-field Ising ferromagnet

The random transverse-field Ising ferromagnet (RTFIF) is a highly disordered quantum system which contains randomness in the coupling strengths as well as in the transverse-field strengths. In one dimension, the critical properties are governed by an infinite-randomness fixed point (IRFP), and renormalization-group studies argue that the two-dimensional (2D) model is also governed by an IRFP. However, even the location of the critical point remains unsettled among quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) studies. In this work, we perform extensive QMC simulations to locate the quantum critical point and attempt a finite-size scaling analysis to observe the critical behavior. We estimate the critical field strength of the 2D RTFIF as $\Gamma_c = 7.52(2)$, together with critical exponents such as $\beta=1.5(3)$, $\nu = 1.6(3)$, and $z=3.3(3)$ or $\psi=0.50(3)$. We have also considered the McCoy-Wu model, which has randomness in the ferromagnetic coupling strengths but not in the transverse-field strength. Our QMC calculation shows that the critical behavior of the 2D McCoy-Wu model is closer to that of the 2D transverse-field Ising spin glass than to that of the 2D RTFIF. These numerical findings enhance our understanding of disordered 2D quantum systems

Transformer-based Map Matching Model with Limited Ground-Truth Data using Transfer-Learning Approach

In many spatial trajectory-based applications, it is necessary to map raw trajectory data points onto road networks in digital maps, which is commonly referred to as a map-matching process. While most previous map-matching methods have focused on using rule-based algorithms to deal with the map-matching problems, in this paper, we consider the map-matching task from the data-driven perspective, proposing a deep learning-based map-matching model. We build a Transformer-based map-matching model with a transfer learning approach. We generate trajectory data to pre-train the Transformer model and then fine-tune the model with a limited number of ground-truth data to minimize the model development cost and reduce the real-to-virtual gap. Three metrics (Average Hamming Distance, F-score, and BLEU) at two levels (point and segment level) are used to evaluate the model performance. The results indicate that the proposed model outperforms existing models. Furthermore, we use the attention weights of the Transformer to plot the map-matching process and find how the model matches the road segments correctly.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, 4 table

Nasopharynx as a Microbiologic Reservoir in Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media: Preliminary Study

ObjectivesThe present study was designed to identify the correlations of bacterial strains of the middle ear and the nasopharynx in chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) patients who were scheduled for operations.MethodsSixty-three patients with CSOM were enrolled in the study. Culture specimens were collected from the middle ear and nasopharynx of patients who were admitted for operation. Samples collections were performed 3 times; from the middle ear and nasophaynx at the admission day, from the middle ear during the operation, and from the external auditory canal post-operatively. Bacteria were identified by gram staining and biochemical tests. The correspondence rate of organisms which simultaneously exist in the middle ear and the nasopharynx was measured.ResultsSixty-eight organisms were isolated from the middle ear and 57 organisms from the nasopharynx among 63 patients. Of 68 bacteria identified in middle ear, 26.52% (18 bacteria) corresponded with those of nasopharynx. MRSA had the high correspondence rate, and of 18 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated from middle ear, 33.3% (6 bacteria) corresponded with nasophaynx. Meanwhile, 3 organisms of MRSA were detected from the external auditory canal post-operatively, although they were only found in nasopharynx pre-operatively.ConclusionThe current trend of middle ear swab alone for bacterial detection would be insufficient to identify the potent MRSA and impede early antibiotic intervention for the effective middle ear surgery. Therefore, it is necessary to perform nasopharynx cultures together with conventional middle ear culture to control potent risk for infection pre-operatively

Interpretation of the Top-of-Atmosphere Energy Flux for Future Arctic Warming

With the trend of amplified warming in the Arctic, we examine the observed and modeled top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative responses to surface air-temperature changes over the Arctic by using TOA energy fluxes from NASA’s CERES observations and those from twelve climate models in CMIP5. Considerable inter-model spreads in the radiative responses suggest that future Arctic warming may be determined by the compensation between the radiative imbalance and poleward energy transport (mainly via transient eddy activities). The poleward energy transport tends to prevent excessive Arctic warming: the transient eddy activities are weakened because of the reduced meridional temperature gradient under polar amplification. However, the models that predict rapid Arctic warming do not realistically simulate the compensation effect. This role of energy compensation in future Arctic warming is found only when the inter-model differences in cloud radiative effects are considered. Thus, the dynamical response can act as a buffer to prevent excessive Arctic warming against the radiative response of 0.11 W m^(−2) K^(−1) as measured from satellites, which helps the Arctic climate system retain an Arctic climate sensitivity of 4.61 K. Therefore, if quantitative analyses of the observations identify contribution of atmospheric dynamics and cloud effects to radiative imbalance, the satellite-measured radiative response will be a crucial indicator of future Arctic warming

SAVER: SNARK-friendly, Additively-homomorphic, and Verifiable Encryption and decryption with Rerandomization

In the pairing-based zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (zk-SNARK), there often exists a requirement for the proof system to be combined with encryption. As a typical example, a blockchain-based voting system requires the vote to be confidential (using encryption), while verifying voting validity (using zk-SNARKs). In these combined applications, a typical solution is to extend the zk-SNARK circuit to include the encryption code. However, complex cryptographic operations in the encryption algorithm increase the circuit size, which leads to impractically large proving time and CRS size. In this paper, we propose SNARK-friendly, Additively-homomorphic, and Verifiable Encryption and decryption with Rerandomization or SAVER, which is a novel approach to detach the encryption from the SNARK circuit. The encryption in SAVER holds many useful properties. It is SNARK-friendly: the encryption is conjoined with an existing pairing-based SNARK, in a way that the encryptor can prove pre-defined properties while encrypting the message apart from the SNARK. It is additively-homomorphic: the ciphertext holds a homomorphic property from the ElGamal-based encryption. It is a verifiable encryption: one can verify arbitrary properties of encrypted messages by connecting with the SNARK system. It provides a verifiable decryption: anyone without the secret can still verify that the decrypted message is indeed from the given ciphertext. It provides rerandomization: the proof and the ciphertext can be rerandomized as independent objects so that even the encryptor (or prover) herself cannot identify the origin. For the representative application, we also propose a Vote-SAVER based on SAVER, which is a novel voting system where voter\u27s secret key lies only with the voter himself. The Vote-SAVER satisfies receipt-freeness (which implies ballot privacy), individual verifiability (which implies non-repudiation), vote verifiability, tally uniqueness, and voter anonymity. The experimental results show that our SAVER with respect to the Vote-SAVER relation yields 0.7s for zk-SNARK proving time and 10ms for encryption, with the CRS size of 16MB