Singing Knit: Soft Knit Biosensing for Augmenting Vocal Performances

This paper discusses the design of the Singing Knit, a wearable knit collar for measuring a singer's vocal interactions through surface electromyography. We improve the ease and comfort of multi-electrode bio-sensing systems by adapting knit e-textile methods. The goal of the design was to preserve the capabilities of rigid electrode sensing while addressing its shortcomings, focusing on comfort and reliability during extended wear, practicality and convenience for performance settings, and aesthetic value. We use conductive, silver-plated nylon jersey fabric electrodes in a full rib knit accessory for sensing laryngeal muscular activation. We discuss the iterative design and the material decision-making process as a method for building integrated soft-sensing wearable systems for similar settings. Additionally, we discuss how the design choices through the construction process reflect its use in a musical performance context

Building an IDE for an embedded system using web technologies

Implementing an understandable, accessible and effective user interface is a major challenge for many products in the microcontroller and embedded computing community. Bela, an embedded system for ultra-low latency audio and sensor processing, features a browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) using web technologies (Node.js, HTML5 and CSS). This methodology has allowed us to create an IDE that is simplified and intuitive for beginners while still being useful to those more advanced, thus supporting users as they evolve in expertise

How Polarized Have We Become? A Multimodal Classification of Trump Followers and Clinton Followers

Polarization in American politics has been extensively documented and analyzed for decades, and the phenomenon became all the more apparent during the 2016 presidential election, where Trump and Clinton depicted two radically different pictures of America. Inspired by this gaping polarization and the extensive utilization of Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign, in this paper we take the first step in measuring polarization in social media and we attempt to predict individuals' Twitter following behavior through analyzing ones' everyday tweets, profile images and posted pictures. As such, we treat polarization as a classification problem and study to what extent Trump followers and Clinton followers on Twitter can be distinguished, which in turn serves as a metric of polarization in general. We apply LSTM to processing tweet features and we extract visual features using the VGG neural network. Integrating these two sets of features boosts the overall performance. We are able to achieve an accuracy of 69%, suggesting that the high degree of polarization recorded in the literature has started to manifest itself in social media as well.Comment: 16 pages, SocInfo 2017, 9th International Conference on Social Informatic

Light scattering and phase behavior of Lysozyme-PEG mixtures

Measurements of liquid-liquid phase transition temperatures (cloud points) of mixtures of a protein (lysozyme) and a polymer, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) show that the addition of low molecular weight PEG stabilizes the mixture whereas high molecular weight PEG was destabilizing. We demonstrate that this behavior is inconsistent with an entropic depletion interaction between lysozyme and PEG and suggest that an energetic attraction between lysozyme and PEG is responsible. In order to independently characterize the lysozyme/PEG interactions, light scattering experiments on the same mixtures were performed to measure second and third virial coefficients. These measurements indicate that PEG induces repulsion between lysozyme molecules, contrary to the depletion prediction. Furthermore, it is shown that third virial terms must be included in the mixture's free energy in order to qualitatively capture our cloud point and light scattering data. The light scattering results were consistent with the cloud point measurements and indicate that attractions do exist between lysozyme and PEG.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Dissimilar friction stir welding of duplex stainless steel to low alloy structural steel

In the present study, 6 mm nominal thickness dissimilar steel plates were joined using friction stir welding. The materials used were duplex stainless steel and low alloy structural steel. The weld was assessed by metallographic examination and mechanical testing (transverse tensile and fatigue). Microstructural examination identified four distinct weld zones and a substantially hard region within the stir zone at the base of the weld tool pin. Fatigue specimens demonstrated high level fatigue life and identified four distinct fracture modes

A systematic review and metaethnography to identify how effective, cost-effective, accessible and acceptable self-management support interventions are for men with long-term conditions (SELF-MAN)

Review methods: In the quantitative review, data on relevant outcomes, patient populations, intervention type and study quality were extracted. Quality appraisal was conducted independently by two reviewers using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Meta-analysis was conducted to compare the effects of interventions in male, female and mixed-sex groups. In the metaethnography, study details, participant quotes (first-order constructs) and study authors’ themes/concepts (second-order constructs) were extracted. Quality appraisal was conducted independently by two reviewers using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool. Data were synthesised according to a metaethnography approach. Third-order interpretations/constructs were derived from the extracted data and integrated to generate a ‘line-of-argument’ synthesis. Results: Forty RCTs of self-management support interventions in male-only samples, and 20 RCTs where an analysis by gender was reported, were included in the quantitative review. Meta-analysis suggested that interventions including physical activity, education and peer support have a positive impact on quality of life in men, and that men may derive more benefit than women from them, but there is currently insufficient evidence to draw definitive conclusions. Thirty-eight qualitative studies relevant to men’s experiences of, and perceptions of, self-management support were included in the qualitative review. The metaethnography identified four concepts: (1) need for purpose; (2) trusted environments; (3) value of peers; and (4) becoming an expert. Findings indicated that men may feel less comfortable engaging in support if it is perceived to be incongruous with valued aspects of masculine identities. Men may find support interventions more attractive when they have a clear purpose, are action-oriented and offer practical strategies that can be integrated into daily life. Support delivered in an environment that offers a sense of shared understanding can be particularly appealing to some men. Conclusions: Health professionals and those involved in designing interventions may wish to consider whether or not certain components (e.g. physical activity, education, peer support) are particularly effective in men, although more research is needed to fully determine and explore this. Interventions are most likely to be accessible and acceptable to men when working with, not against, valued aspects of masculine identities

‘Play it by ear’ – teachers’ responses to ear-playing tasks during one to one instrumental lessons

This paper reports findings from the Ear Playing Project (EPP) in relation to the teaching strategies that 15 instrumental teachers adopted during one-to-one instrumental lessons whilst helping their students to copy music by ear from a recording. Overall, the teachers used a variety of strategies including singing and humming along with or without the recording, asking questions, and giving verbal explanation and positive feedback. By the end of the project the teachers indicated that the project showed them a new and enjoyable way to introduce aural-training tasks, it helped them develop their own confidence in ear-playing and it gave them the opportunity to observe and assess their students’ needs more carefully. The benefits for the students included greater enjoyment during instrumental lessons, development of aural and improvisation skills and greater confidence in instrumental playing

Autoethnographic and qualitative research on popular music: Exploring the blues, jazz, grime, John Cage, live performance, SoundCloud and the masculinities of metal

This special edition of Riffs focuses on autoethnography and qualitative research in relation to popular music. The journal publication is twinned with a forthcoming book entitled: Popular Music Ethnographies: practice, place, identity. The intention of these studies is to uphold the principle that ‘music is good to think with’ (Chambers 1981: 38). Riffs was founded in 2015 to promote experimental writing on popular music, with a strong DiY ethos and space to offer flexibility and diversity of outputs through challenging interdisciplinary boundaries. At the same time there is a degree of similarity with specialist popular music magazines including Mojo, fRoots (1979-2019), Rolling Stone, Record Collector, Prog, Mixmag, and Uncut, through a focus on visuals and creative images. This suggests that there has been an increased growth at the ‘popular’ end of biographical and autoethnography within popular music. Critically, popular music autoethnographies work across and within disciplinary boundaries of anthropology, social anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, and popular music studies

The ATLAS SCT grounding and shielding concept and implementation

This paper presents a complete description of Virgo, the French-Italian gravitational wave detector. The detector, built at Cascina, near Pisa (Italy), is a very large Michelson interferometer, with 3 km-long arms. In this paper, following a presentation of the physics requirements, leading to the specifications for the construction of the detector, a detailed description of all its different elements is given. These include civil engineering infrastructures, a huge ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber (about 6000 cubic metres), all of the optical components, including high quality mirrors and their seismic isolating suspensions, all of the electronics required to control the interferometer and for signal detection. The expected performances of these different elements are given, leading to an overall sensitivity curve as a function of the incoming gravitational wave frequency. This description represents the detector as built and used in the first data-taking runs. Improvements in different parts have been and continue to be performed, leading to better sensitivities. These will be detailed in a forthcoming paper

Spectroscopy of 54^{54}Ti and the systematic behavior of low energy octupole states in Ca and Ti isotopes

Excited states of the $N=32$ nucleus $^{54}$Ti have been studied, via both inverse-kinematics proton scattering and one-neutron knockout from $^{55}$Ti by a liquid hydrogen target, using the GRETINA $\gamma$-ray tracking array. Inelastic proton-scattering cross sections and deformation lengths have been determined. A low-lying octupole state has been tentatively identified in $^{54}$Ti for the first time. A comparison of $(p,p')$ results on low-energy octupole states in the neutron-rich Ca and Ti isotopes with the results of Random Phase Approximation calculations demonstrates that the observed systematic behavior of these states is unexpected.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure