The erhu and its role as a vehicle for syncretic music performance in Singapore : a thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Music at Wellington Conservatorium of Music, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

This thesis examines the erhu, a bowed lute from China and its development as a vehicle for syncretic music-making in Singapore. Chapter One considers the erhu's status in Chinese culture and focuses on the differences between how the erhu was perceived by the "proletariat" of the early twentieth century contrasted with the imperialists of that time. A central assumption in this study is that erhu music-making in Singapore is inextricably bound with the traditions of both Western and Chinese culture. This concept is introduced in Chapter Two, with a discussion on musical syncretism. The erhu is a member of the huqin string family and is one instrument in the new ensemble idiom of the Singapore Huqin Quartet. This ensemble is the first to have huqin set up together in the manner of a Western string quartet. This ensemble has been influential on and contributes to a broad range of musical happenings in Singapore. It also represents one development of erhu as "world music". Phoon Yew Tien, who writes for the Singapore Huqin Quartet, is introduced. Chapter Three encompasses the different instruments that make up the huqin family, as played by the Singapore Huqin Quartet (which will be referred to as the SHQ in abbreviation). It also looks at the development of the modern Chinese orchestra. Chapter Four provides the descriptions and characteristics of the erhu and its performance techniques. In Chapter Five, eminent musical figures such as Liu Tian Hua and Hua Yan Jun (also known as Abing) will be discussed. Their music composed for the erhu has become an important part of the repertoire of the SHQ. The concluding chapter outlines differences between Western and Chinese music and looks at the merging of the two. A product of this merger is the compositions of distinguished Singapore composer, Phoon Yew Tien. His works are a fine example of the erhu's musical qualities and demonstrate the compositional potential of the SHQ's syncretic idiom with the merging of the Chinese and Western art-music forces. A musical composition by Phoon viewed in a compositional perspective summarizes the possibilities of further development of this style

ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREES

ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREE

Geometric Registration of High-genus Surfaces

This paper presents a method to obtain geometric registrations between high-genus ($g\geq 1$) surfaces. Surface registration between simple surfaces, such as simply-connected open surfaces, has been well studied. However, very few works have been carried out for the registration of high-genus surfaces. The high-genus topology of the surface poses great challenge for surface registration. A possible approach is to partition surfaces into simply-connected patches and registration is done patch by patch. Consistent cuts are required, which are usually difficult to obtain and prone to error. In this work, we propose an effective way to obtain geometric registration between high-genus surfaces without introducing consistent cuts. The key idea is to conformally parameterize the surface into its universal covering space, which is either the Euclidean plane or the hyperbolic disk embedded in $\mathbb{R}^2$. Registration can then be done on the universal covering space by minimizing a shape mismatching energy measuring the geometric dissimilarity between the two surfaces. Our proposed algorithm effectively computes a smooth registration between high-genus surfaces that matches geometric information as much as possible. The algorithm can also be applied to find a smooth and bijective registration minimizing any general energy functionals. Numerical experiments on high-genus surface data show that our proposed method is effective for registering high-genus surfaces with geometric matching. We also applied the method to register anatomical structures for medical imaging, which demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed algorithm

Some observations on the logical foundations of inductive theorem proving

In this paper we study the logical foundations of automated inductive theorem proving. To that aim we first develop a theoretical model that is centered around the difficulty of finding induction axioms which are sufficient for proving a goal. Based on this model, we then analyze the following aspects: the choice of a proof shape, the choice of an induction rule and the language of the induction formula. In particular, using model-theoretic techniques, we clarify the relationship between notions of inductiveness that have been considered in the literature on automated inductive theorem proving. This is a corrected version of the paper arXiv:1704.01930v5 published originally on Nov.~16, 2017