Exploring new features for music classification

International audienceAutomatic music classification aims at grouping unknown songs in predefined categories such as music genre or induced emotion. To obtain perceptually relevant results, it is needed to design appropriate features that carry important information for semantic inference. In this paper, we explore novel features and evaluate them in a task of music automatic tagging. The proposed features span various aspects of the music: timbre, textual metadata, visual descriptors of cover art, and features characterizing the lyrics of sung music. The merit of these novel features is then evaluated using a classification system based on a boosting algorithm on binary decision trees. Their effectiveness for the task at hand is discussed with reference to the very common Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients features. We show that some of these features alone bring useful information, and that the classification system takes great advantage of a description covering such diverse aspects of songs

Prédiction des services écosystémiques dans les bois agricoles à partir d’images hyperspectrales

Les services écosystémiques sont devenus un enjeu social, écologique et économique majeur dans le monde. Les forêts des paysages agricoles offrent des services précieux bien qu'ils soient souvent sous-estimés et mal utilisés. Cependant, une cartographie précise de ces services à grande échelle reste difficile. Des données de télédétection permettent aujourd’hui d’envisager cette cartographie. Nous avons évalué la contribution des indices de végétation calculés à partir d'images hyperspectrales à haute résolution spatiale pour la prévision de services écosystémiques par rapport aux résultats fondées sur la couverture terrestre. 28 parcelles forestières ont été échantillonnées et des images hyperspectrales aéroportées ont été acquises pour la zone d'étude, à une résolution de 2 m. Habituellement, les indices de végétation dérivés de l'hyperspectral à l’échelle du paysage (buffer spatial autour de l’objet considéré) sont réduits en utilisant des statistiques descriptives (moyenne, écart-type, valeurs minimales et maximales). Cependant, cette approche peut perdre beaucoup d'informations, en particulier à l'échelle des paysages, où plusieurs objets avec différentes signatures spectrales sont présents. Nous proposons une description du paysage hyperspectral basée sur la répartition complète des indices de végétation à travers les paysages. Nous avons utilisé les modèles de mélange gaussien (GMM) pour modéliser la distribution des pixels dans chaque paysage et introduit une distance L2 entre ces mélanges. Cette distance est utilisée dans l’algorithme des plus proches voisins pour prédire les niveaux de services. La qualité des prédictions a été comparée entre trois représentations de paysage: occupation des sols, statistiques descriptives de données hyperspectrales et description de données hyperspectrales basées sur GMM

Rhythm extraction from polyphonic symbolic music

International audienceWe focus on the rhythmic component of symbolic music similarity, proposing several ways to extract a monophonic rhythmic signature from a symbolic poly- phonic score. To go beyond the simple extraction of all time intervals between onsets (noteson extraction), we select notes according to their length (short and long extractions) or their intensities (intensity+/− extractions). Once the rhythm is extracted, we use dynamic programming to compare several sequences. We report results of analysis on the size of rhythm patterns that are specific to a unique piece, as well as experiments on similarity queries (ragtime music and Bach chorale variations). These results show that long and intensity+ extractions are often good choices for rhythm extraction. Our conclusions are that, even from polyphonic symbolic music, rhythm alone can be enough to identify a piece or to perform pertinent music similarity queries, especially when using wise rhythm extractions

Discrimination périodique à partir d’observations multi-temporelles

Cet article s’attaque au problème de discrimination instantanée de données temporelles périodiques. Nous proposons un classifieur linéaire non-stationnaire, régularisé par rapport à sa complexité temporelle. Le modèle est également étendu au cas multi-classe. Cette approche est testée sur des simulations numériques ainsi que des séries temporelles d’images satellites. Les résultats illustrent un très bon comportement

Thiol groups controls on arsenite binding by organic matter: New experimental and modeling evidence

International audienceAlthough it has been suggested that several mechanisms can describe the direct binding ofAs(III) to organic matter (OM), more recently, the thiol functional group of humic acid (HA)was shown to be an important potential binding site for As(III). Isotherm experiments onAs(III) sorption to HAs, that have either been grafted with thiol or not, were thus conducted toinvestigate the preferential As(III) binding sites. There was a low level of binding of As(III) toHA, which was strongly dependent on the abundance of the thiols. Experimental datasetswere used to develop a new model (the modified PHREEQC-Model VI), which defines HA asa group of discrete carboxylic, phenolic and thiol sites. Protonation/deprotonation constantswere determined for each group of sites (pKA = 4.28 ± 0.03; ΔpKA = 2.13 ± 0.10; pKB = 7.11 ±0.26; ΔpKB = 3.52 ± 0.49; pKS = 5.82 ± 0.052; ΔpKS = 6.12 ± 0.12 for the carboxylic, phenolicand thiols sites, respectively) from HAs that were either grafted with thiol or not. The pKSvalue corresponds to that of single thiol-containing organic ligands. Two binding models weretested: the Mono model, which considered that As(III) is bound to the HA thiol site asmonodentate complexes, and the Tri model, which considered that As(III) is bound astridentate complexes. A simulation of the available literature datasets was used to validate2the Mono model, with log KMS = 2.91 ± 0.04, i.e. the monodentate hypothesis. This studyhighlighted the importance of thiol groups in OM reactivity and, notably, determined theAs(III) concentration bound to OM (considering that Fe is lacking or at least negligible) andwas used to develop a model that is able to determine the As(III) concentrations bound toOM

Marcel Granet (1884–1940)

The history of French Sinology is marked by a series of axial dates and prominent names – Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, the Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, Paul Pelliot and, above all, Édouard Chavannes – who made Francophone studies of China remarkable throughout the nineteenth century, the age of the birth of modern scientific research. Marcel Granet, whose fame outlived his premature death at the beginning of the War, on November 25th 1940, left a durable mark on this history through the alliance that he managed to weave between his sinological knowledge, his study of sociology, brilliant intuitions, and a pedagogical capacity rooted in a writing-style as elegant as it is instructive. He had multiple scholarly talents but was unique in his gift for popularization. It would be possible to summarily divide his work into two great threads, sometimes remarkably entwined: inform the wider educated public about the roots and mysteries of ancient Chinese culture; and share his innovative readings of the documents that for more than two thousand years have formed the foundations of “China knowledge”. It was through this scholarly route that Granet embarked on a brilliant academic career, and that he traced out a path from which he would never depart: that of an innovative, sometimes iconoclastic, interpretation of documents from, for the most part, Antiquity

Structure, nonlinear properties, and photosensitivity of (GeSe2)​100-​x(Sb2Se3)​x glasses

International audienceChalcogenide glasses from (GeSe2)​100-​x(Sb2Se3)​x system were synthesized, with x varying from 5 to 70, in order to evaluate the influence of antimony selenide addn. on nonlinear optical properties and photosensitivity. Nonlinear refractive index and two photon absorption coeffs. were measured both at 1064 nm in picosecond regime using the Z-​scan technique and at 1.55 μm in femtosecond regime using an original method based on direct anal. of beam profile change while propagating in the chalcogenide glasses. The study of their photosensitivity at 1.55 μm revealed highly glass compn. dependent behavior and quasi-​photostable compns. have been identified in femtosecond regime. To better understand these characteristics, the evolution of the glass transition temp., d. and structure with the chem. compn. were detd

Smartphone Based 3D Navigation Techniques in an Astronomical Observatory Context: Implementation and Evaluation in a Software Platform

International audience3D Virtual Environments (3DVE) come up as a good solution to transmit knowledge in a museum exhibit. In such contexts, providing easy to learn and to use interaction techniques which facilitate the handling inside a 3DVE is crucial to maximize the knowledge transfer. We took the opportunity to design and implement a software platform for explaining the behavior of the Telescope Bernard-Lyot to museum visitors on top of the Pic du Midi. Beyond the popularization of a complex scientific equipment, this platform constitutes an open software environment to easily plug different 3D interaction techniques. Recently, popular use of a smartphones as personal handled computer lets us envision the use of a mobile device as an interaction support with these 3DVE. Accordingly, we design and propose how to use the smartphone as a tangible object to navigate inside a 3DVE. In order to prove the interest in the use of smartphones, we compare our solution with available solutions: keyboard-mouse and 3D mouse. User experiments confirmed our hypothesis and particularly emphasizes that visitors find our solution more attractive and stimulating. Finally, we illustrate the benefits of our software framework by plugging alternative interaction techniques for supporting selection and manipulation task in 3D

Zinc and cobalt complexes based on tripodal ligands: synthesis, structure and reactivity toward lactide.

International audienceThe coordination chemistry of a series of pro-ligands ([L¹]-[L⁶]) with cobalt and zinc derivatives has been studied. All complexes have been characterized by multinuclear NMR, elemental analysis, and by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. Polymerization of rac-lactide takes place at 130 °C in the presence of cobalt and zinc complexes to yield polymers under solvent free conditions with controlled molecular masses and narrow polydispersities