The evolution of popular music: USA 1960-2010.

(c) 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.In modern societies, cultural change seems ceaseless. The flux of fashion is especially obvious for popular music. While much has been written about the origin and evolution of pop, most claims about its history are anecdotal rather than scientific in nature. To rectify this, we investigate the US Billboard Hot 100 between 1960 and 2010. Using music information retrieval and text-mining tools, we analyse the musical properties of approximately 17 000 recordings that appeared in the charts and demonstrate quantitative trends in their harmonic and timbral properties. We then use these properties to produce an audio-based classification of musical styles and study the evolution of musical diversity and disparity, testing, and rejecting, several classical theories of cultural change. Finally, we investigate whether pop musical evolution has been gradual or punctuated. We show that, although pop music has evolved continuously, it did so with particular rapidity during three stylistic 'revolutions' around 1964, 1983 and 1991. We conclude by discussing how our study points the way to a quantitative science of cultural change.http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.15008

Genetic Approaches to Metabolic Bone Diseases

Metabolic bone diseases comprise a diverse group of disorders characterized by alterations in skeletal homeostasis, and are often associated with abnormal circulating concentrations of calcium, phosphate or vitamin D metabolites. These diseases commonly have a genetic basis and represent either a monogenic disorder due to a germline or somatic single gene mutation, or an oligogenic or polygenic disorder that involves variants in more than one gene. Germline single gene mutations causing Mendelian diseases typically have a high penetrance, whereas the genetic variations causing oligogenic or polygenic disorders are each associated with smaller effects with additional contributions from environmental factors. Recognition of familial monogenic disorders is of clinical importance to facilitate timely investigations and management of the patient and any affected relatives. The diagnosis of monogenic metabolic bone disease requires careful clinical evaluation of the large diversity of symptoms and signs associated with these disorders. Thus, the clinician must pursue a systematic approach beginning with a detailed history and physical examination, followed by appropriate laboratory and skeletal imaging evaluations. Finally, the clinician must understand the increasing number and complexity of molecular genetic tests available to ensure their appropriate use and interpretation

AzeR, a transcriptional regulator that responds to azelaic acid in Pseudomonas nitroreducens

This is the final version. Available on open access from the Microbiology Society via the DOI in this recordAzelaic acid is a dicarboxylic acid that has recently been shown to play a role in plant-bacteria signalling and also occurs naturally in several cereals. Several bacteria have been reported to be able to utilize azelaic acid as a unique source of carbon and energy, including Pseudomonas nitroreducens. In this study, we utilize P. nitroreducens as a model organism to study bacterial degradation of and response to azelaic acid. We report genetic evidence of azelaic acid degradation and the identification of a transcriptional regulator that responds to azelaic acid in P. nitroreducens DSM 9128. Three mutants possessing transposons in genes of an acyl-CoA ligase, an acyl-CoA dehydrogenase and an isocitrate lyase display a deficient ability in growing in azelaic acid. Studies on transcriptional regulation of these genes resulted in the identification of an IclR family repressor that we designated as AzeR, which specifically responds to azelaic acid. A bioinformatics survey reveals that AzeR is confined to a few proteobacterial genera that are likely to be able to degrade and utilize azelaic acid as the sole source of carbon and energy

Analysis of acute vascular damage after photodynamic therapy using benzoporphyrin derivative (BPD)

Benzoporphyrin derivative monoacid ring A (BPD-MA, verteporfin) is currently under investigation as a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy (PDT). Since BPD exhibits rapid pharmacokinetics in plasma and tissues, we assessed damage to tumour and muscle microvasculature when light treatment for PDT was given at short times after injection of photosensitizer. Groups of rats with chondrosarcoma were given 2 mg kg−1 of BPD intravenously 5 min to 180 min before light treatment of 150 J cm−2 690 nm. Vascular response was monitored using intravital microscopy and tumour cure was monitored by following regrowth over 42 days. For treatment at 5 or 30 min after BPD injection, blood flow stasis was limited to tumour microvasculature with lesser response in the surrounding normal microvasculature, indicating selective targeting for damage. No acute changes were observed in vessels when light was given 180 min after BPD injection. Tumour regression after light treatment occurred in all animals given PDT with BPD. Long-term tumour regression was greater in animals treated 5 min after BPD injection and least in animals given treatment 180 min after drug injection. The correlation between the timing for vascular damage and cure implies that blood flow stasis plays a significant role in PDT-induced tumour destruction. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Cultural robotics : The culture of robotics and robotics in culture

Copyright 2013 Samani et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedIn this paper, we have investigated the concept of "Cultural Robotics" with regard to the evolution o social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the potential development of culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. According to the importance of the embodiment of robots in the sense of presence, the influence of robots in communication culture is anticipated. The sustainability of robotics culture based on diversity for cultural communities for various acceptance modalities is explored in order to anticipate the creation of different attributes of culture between robot and humans in the futurePeer reviewe

Non-Parametric Approximations for Anisotropy Estimation in Two-dimensional Differentiable Gaussian Random Fields

Spatially referenced data often have autocovariance functions with elliptical isolevel contours, a property known as geometric anisotropy. The anisotropy parameters include the tilt of the ellipse (orientation angle) with respect to a reference axis and the aspect ratio of the principal correlation lengths. Since these parameters are unknown a priori, sample estimates are needed to define suitable spatial models for the interpolation of incomplete data. The distribution of the anisotropy statistics is determined by a non-Gaussian sampling joint probability density. By means of analytical calculations, we derive an explicit expression for the joint probability density function of the anisotropy statistics for Gaussian, stationary and differentiable random fields. Based on this expression, we obtain an approximate joint density which we use to formulate a statistical test for isotropy. The approximate joint density is independent of the autocovariance function and provides conservative probability and confidence regions for the anisotropy parameters. We validate the theoretical analysis by means of simulations using synthetic data, and we illustrate the detection of anisotropy changes with a case study involving background radiation exposure data. The approximate joint density provides (i) a stand-alone approximate estimate of the anisotropy statistics distribution (ii) informed initial values for maximum likelihood estimation, and (iii) a useful prior for Bayesian anisotropy inference.Comment: 39 pages; 8 figure

New acute treatments for headache

Although we have several acute care medications for the treatment of migraine, we are always looking for new medications to treat our patients. Patients often say that their headaches are not under optimal control and would be happy to try another medication. Patients look for faster onset of relief, more complete relief, no recurrent headache and no adverse events. This article will cover some new and some anticipated acute care products, CGRP antagonists, sumatriptan by iontophoretic patch, sumatriptan by needle-free injections, DHE by oral inhalation and diclofenac potassium in a sachet. Botulinum toxin therapy, although a preventive measure, will be mentioned at the end

Spectral Line-by-Line Pulse Shaping of an On-Chip Microresonator Frequency Comb

We report, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, spectral phase characterization and line-by-line pulse shaping of an optical frequency comb generated by nonlinear wave mixing in a microring resonator. Through programmable pulse shaping the comb is compressed into a train of near-transform-limited pulses of \approx 300 fs duration (intensity full width half maximum) at 595 GHz repetition rate. An additional, simple example of optical arbitrary waveform generation is presented. The ability to characterize and then stably compress the frequency comb provides new data on the stability of the spectral phase and suggests that random relative frequency shifts due to uncorrelated variations of frequency dependent phase are at or below the 100 microHertz level.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure