The beauty of sound: Timbre as grounds for aesthetic and artistic value in music

This thesis explores the concept of timbre through the lens of analytic philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of music. I argue that timbre should be thought of as providing the grounds for artistic and aesthetic values in music. To this end and firstly, I critique the physical sense of timbre in favour of two anti-realist senses of timbre. These two are the qualitative and the semantic senses which are developed from two of Siedenburg and McAdams’ four senses of timbre (Siedenburg & McAdams, 2017). I argue that the qualitative sense of timbre is the experience of the unique qualities of sounds. The semantic sense is that which associates timbres to objects and concepts. Within the semantic sense, I argue for what I call a genealogical sense of timbre which relates timbres to sources and concepts through a history of built up associations. Secondly, these two senses are situated within the artform of music by demonstrating the functions they may fulfil there and how these ground artistic and aesthetic values. Regarding these values, I employ Robert Stecker’s definitions of artistic and aesthetic value. (Stecker, 2019) Finally, I summarise the two arguments for why we should think that timbre can provide grounds for aesthetic and artistic value in music

High‐Speed Large‐Field Multifocal Illumination Fluorescence Microscopy

Scanning optical microscopy techniques are commonly restricted to a sub‐millimeter field‐of‐view (FOV) or otherwise employ slow mechanical translation, limiting their applicability for imaging fast biological dynamics occurring over large areas. A rapid scanning large‐field multifocal illumination (LMI) fluorescence microscopy technique is devised based on a beam‐splitting grating and an acousto‐optic deflector synchronized with a high‐speed camera to attain real‐time fluorescence microscopy over a centimeter‐scale FOV. Owing to its large depth of focus, the approach allows noninvasive visualization of perfusion across the entire mouse cerebral cortex, not achievable with conventional wide‐field fluorescence microscopy methods. The new concept can readily be incorporated into conventional wide‐field microscopes to mitigate image blur due to tissue scattering and attain optimal trade‐off between spatial resolution and FOV. It further establishes a bridge between conventional wide‐field macroscopy and laser scanning confocal microscopy, thus it is anticipated to find broad applicability in functional neuroimaging, in vivo cell tracking, and other applications looking at large‐scale fluorescent‐based biodynamics

A method for eternally dominating strong grids

International audienceIn the eternal domination game, an attacker attacks a vertex at each turn and a team of guards must move a guard to the attacked vertex to defend it. The guards may only move to adjacent vertices and no more than one guard may occupy a vertex. The goal is to determine the eternal domination number of a graph which is the minimum number of guards required to defend the graph against an infinite sequence of attacks. In this paper, we continue the study of the eternal domination game on strong grids. Cartesian grids have been vastly studied with tight bounds for small grids such as 2×n, 3×n, 4×n, and 5×n grids, and recently it was proven in [Lamprou et al., CIAC 2017, 393-404] that the eternal domination number of these grids in general is within O(m + n) of their domination number which lower bounds the eternal domination number. Recently, Finbow et al. proved that the eternal domination number of strong grids is upper bounded by mn 6 + O(m + n). We adapt the techniques of [Lamprou et al., CIAC 2017, 393-404] to prove that the eternal domination number of strong grids is upper bounded by mn 7 + O(m + n). While this does not improve upon a recently announced bound of ⎡m/3⎤ x⎡n/3⎤ + O(m √ n) [Mc Inerney, Nisse, Pérennes, HAL archives, 2018; Mc Inerney, Nisse, Pérennes, CIAC 2019] in the general case, we show that our bound is an improvement in the case where the smaller of the two dimensions is at most 6179

Portable low-cost open-source wireless spectrophotometer for fast and reliable measurements

This article is based upon COST Action CA16215 and supported by the ERDF , European-Union Project No.1.1.1.2/16/I/001.We demonstrate a low-cost standalone portable spectrophotometer for fast and reliable measurement execution. The data acquired can be both displayed via a dedicated smartphone application or a computer interface, allowing users either to gather and view data on the move or set up a continuous experiment. All design and software files are open-source and are intended for the device to be easily replicable and further customizable to suit specific applications. The assembled device can measure absorption in the wavelength range from 450 nm to 750 nm with a resolution of 15 nm and is housed in a 90 × 85 × 58 mm casing. Validation of the device was carried out by assessing wavelength accuracy, dynamic range and the signal-to-noise ratio of the system, followed by testing in three different applications where limit of quantification, limit of detection and relative standard deviations were determined. The results indicated better performance than low-cost spectrophotometers, on average being comparable to moderate to high-cost spectrophotometers.European Regional Development Fund 1.1.1.2/16/I/001; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART²https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246806722030016

Humanized Ovarian Cancer Patient-Derived Xenografts for Improved Preclinical Evaluation of Immunotherapies

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) has poor prognosis and new treatment modalities are needed. Immunotherapy, with checkpoint inhibitors, have demonstrated limited impact. To evaluate the suitability for immunotherapeutics, contextualized preclinical models are required to secure meaningful clinical translation. Therefore, we developed and characterized humanized patient-derived xenograft (hu PDX) murine models of HGSOC, which were established by orthotopic implantation of tumor cell suspensions and intravenous injection of CD34+ cells isolated from umbilical cord blood samples. The developing human immune system in NSG and NSGS mice was followed longitudinally by flow cytometry and characterized by mass cytometry with a panel of 34 surface markers. Molecular imaging of tumor burden, survival analysis, and characterization of tumor-infiltrating immune cells was performed to assess the treatment response to anti-PD-1 (nivolumab) monotherapy. Successful generation of hu PDX models was achieved. Mice treated with nivolumab showed a decrease in tumor burden, however no significant survival benefit was identified when compared to untreated controls. No correlation was seen between PD-L1 expression and CD8 T cell infiltration and response parameters. As the characterization showed an immune infiltration of predominantly myeloid cells, similar to what is observed in HGSOC patients, the models may have the potential to evaluate the importance of myeloid cell immunomodulation as well.publishedVersio

Algorithm Engineering in Robust Optimization

Robust optimization is a young and emerging field of research having received a considerable increase of interest over the last decade. In this paper, we argue that the the algorithm engineering methodology fits very well to the field of robust optimization and yields a rewarding new perspective on both the current state of research and open research directions. To this end we go through the algorithm engineering cycle of design and analysis of concepts, development and implementation of algorithms, and theoretical and experimental evaluation. We show that many ideas of algorithm engineering have already been applied in publications on robust optimization. Most work on robust optimization is devoted to analysis of the concepts and the development of algorithms, some papers deal with the evaluation of a particular concept in case studies, and work on comparison of concepts just starts. What is still a drawback in many papers on robustness is the missing link to include the results of the experiments again in the design