Integrating musicological knowledge into a probabilistic framework for chord and key extraction

In this contribution a formerly developed probabilistic framework for the simultaneous detection of chords and keys in polyphonic audio is further extended and validated. The system behaviour is controlled by a small set of carefully defined free parameters. This has permitted us to conduct an experimental study which sheds a new light on the importance of musicological knowledge in the context of chord extraction. Some of the obtained results are at least surprising and, to our knowledge, never reported as such before

Modeling musicological information as trigrams in a system for simultaneous chord and local key extraction

In this paper, we discuss the introduction of a trigram musicological model in a simultaneous chord and local key extraction system. By enlarging the context of the musicological model, we hoped to achieve a higher accuracy that could justify the associated higher complexity and computational load of the search for the optimal solution. Experiments on multiple data sets have demonstrated that the trigram model has indeed a larger predictive power (a lower perplexity). This raised predictive power resulted in an improvement in the key extraction capabilities, but no improvement in chord extraction when compared to a system with a bigram musicological model

A novel chroma representation of polyphonic music based on multiple pitch tracking techniques

It is common practice to map the frequency content of music onto a chroma representation, but there exist many different schemes for constructing such a representation. In this paper, a new scheme is proposed. It comprises a detection of salient frequencies, a conversion of salient frequencies to notes, a psychophysically motivated weighting of harmonics in support of a note, a restriction of harmonic relations between different notes and a restriction of the deviations from a predefined pitch scale (e.g. the equally tempered western scale). A large-scale experimental evaluation has confirmed that the novel chroma representation more closely matches manual chord labels than the representations generated by six other tested schemes. Therefore, the new chroma representation is expected to improve applications such as song similarity matching and chord detection and labeling

Improving the key extraction performance of a simultaneous local key and chord estimation system

In this paper, significant improvements of a previously developed key and chord extraction system are proposed. The major improvement is the introduction of a separate acoustic model, designed to verify local key hypotheses. The conducted experimental evaluation shows that the presented system improves the state of the art in local key estimation. Our experimental study further demonstrates that the chord estimation performance is already quite robust, whereas the key estimation performance still happens to be sensitive to a number of factors. In particular, we present figures that illustrate the significant impact of the embedded musicological model and the duration of the processed excerpt on the key estimation accuracy

Miscellanea Herpetologica Gabonica V & VI

We report the first observations of the orange morph and new locality records for Atherissquamigera (Viperidae) in Gabon, and new Gabonese locality records, ecological data orunpublished museum material for Pelusios castaneus and P. chapini (Pelomedusidae),Kinixys erosa (Testudinidae), Trionyx triunguis (Trionychidae), Crocodylus niloticus,Mecistops cataphractus and Osteolaemus tetraspis (Crocodylidae), Agama agama and A.lebretoni (Agamidae), Chamaeleo dilepis, C. oweni and Rhampholeon spectrum(Chamaeleonidae), Hemidactylus echinus and H. mabouia (Gekkonidae), Gerrhosaurusnigrolineatus (Gerrhosauridae), Trachylepis maculilabris and T. p. polytropis (Scincidae),Varanus ornatus (Varanidae), Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia, Dipsadoboa underwoodi,Hapsidophrys smaragdinus, Philothamnus carinatus and P. heterodermus, Rhamnophisaethiopissa, Thrasops flavigularis (Colubridae), Pseudohaje goldii (Elapidae), Aparallactusmodestus, Atractaspis boulengeri, Buhoma depressiceps, Hormonotus modestus,Psammophis cf. phillipsii (Lamprophiidae), Python sebae (Pythonidae), Indotyphlopsbraminus (Typhlopidae), Bitis nasicornis and Causus lichtensteinii (Viperidae). We add onespecies each to Estuaire, Haut-Ogooué and Ogooué-Ivindo provinces’ reptile lists. Twosnake species are added to Ivindo National Park, bringing the total number of reptile speciesrecorded from the park to 64, i.e., half of the species currently recorded from Gabon. Wedocument predation cases of Pycnonotus barbatus (Aves: Pycnonotidae) on Hemidactylusmabouia, Philothamnus heterodermus on Arthroleptis variabilis (Amphibia: Arthroleptidae),Hormonotus modestus on Hemidactylus mabouia, Psammophis cf. phillipsii onGerrhosaurus nigrolineatus, Causus lichtensteinii on Sclerophrys sp. (Amphibia:Bufonidae) and feeding of Varanus ornatus on spaghetti

Architecture et théorie. L’héritage de la Renaissance

Ce colloque s’insère dans un ensemble de manifestations consacrées à la théorie de l’art : une table ronde introductive en avril 2009 sur la problématique organisée à Paris par Milovan Stanic (université Paris IV) au Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art à Paris, et un colloque sur la théorie des arts figuratifs à Saint-Pétersbourg (direction Milovan Stanic) en 2010. Il est exclusivement dévolu à l’architecture de la Renaissance à nos jours, dans le prolongement du programme de recherche Architectura du CESR, dont l’une des bases est consacrée aux livres d’architecture (XVIe-XVIIe siècle). En même temps que l’architecture « à l’antique », la Renaissance voit renaître la théorie de l’architecture. Qu’il s’agisse de gloses du traité de Vitruve ou d’entreprises autonomes, les traités fleurissent, du De re ædificatoria d’Alberti (Florence, 1485) à l’Idea della architettura universale de Scamozzi (Venise, 1615), en passant par l’œuvre de Serlio, la plus vaste entreprise éditoriale du Cinquecento, la Regola de Vignole (Rome, 1562) maintes fois rééditée et les Quattro libri d’architettura de Palladio (Venise, 1570). Tous ces ouvrages formalisent une pratique de l’art de bâtir dont les représentations mentales restaient implicites au Moyen Âge, limitées aux transmissions traditionnelles des savoir-faire au sein des corporations. Ils ont été souvent réédités, lus et médités tout au long des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles ; et ils marquaient encore l’enseignement de l’École des beaux-arts au début du XXe siècle. Comment la théorie développée dans les traités de la Renaissance a-t-elle contribué à former la pensée architecturale des architectes des siècles suivants ? Telle est la question à laquelle les intervenants, historiens de l’architecture, architectes et critiques contemporains, tenteront de fournir des éléments de réponse

Trying to choose the less bad route: Individual migratory behaviour of Atlantic salmon smolts (Salmo salar L.) approaching a bifurcation between a hydropower station and a navigation canal

Contrary to small- and medium-sized rivers, little attention has been paid to the downstream migration of Atlantic salmon smolts in large-sized rivers and the size-related impact of hydropower stations. From 2014 to 2016, we investigated the downstream migration of n=72 acoustic-tagged smolts in the Meuse river at a bifurcation zone between a hydropower station equipped with three Kaplan turbines and a navigation canal. A hydrodynamic model that solves the depth-integrated shallow water equations on a Cartesian grid using a finite volume technique was used to infer the influence of water discharge and flow velocity on the smolts’ behaviour upstream of the hydroelectric complex. Of the migrating smolts, 41.5 % performed back and forth movements before approaching the complex for the first time, sometimes over long distances and at a slow pace, leading to significant delays (3‒298 h). Beyond about 250 m3 s-1, the water flow direction changes towards the hydropower station with a gradual acceleration. A median water discharge of 161 m3 s-1 and associated median flow velocity of 0.14 m s-1 tended to favour a more direct and downstream movement towards the hydropower station. On the other hand, the navigation canal was mainly approached at low water discharge (median 132 m3 s-1), due to a higher flow velocity (median 0.11 m s-1) at the entrance. Of the released smolts, only 38.6 % passed through the complex, of which 36.4 % migrated by the navigation canal and 63.6 % by the hydropower station, with a median research time of 04:44. Among all the released individuals, the escapement rate at the end of the study site was 2.9 % by the canal and 8.3 % by the Meuse river. This site, which offers two non-optimal, unattractive and unsafe migration routes, turns out to be problematic for successful downstream smolt migration

Herpes simplex virus encephalitis in a patient with complete TLR3 deficiency: TLR3 is otherwise redundant in protective immunity

A new autosomal recessive form of complete TLR3 deficiency reveals that human TLR3 is nonredundant in immunity against herpes simplex virus 1 in the central nervous system (CNS) but redundant in host defense against viruses outside the CNS

Reassessing the Evidence Hierarchy in Asthma: Evaluating Comparative Effectiveness

Classical randomized controlled trials are the gold standard in medical evidence because of their high internal validity. However, their necessarily strict design can limit their external validity and the ability to extrapolate these data to real world patients. Therefore, alternatively designed studies may play a complementary role in evaluating the comparative effectiveness of therapies in nonidealized patients in more naturalistic, real world settings. Observational studies have high external validity and can evaluate real world outcomes. Their strength lies in hypothesis generation and testing and in identifying areas in which further clinical trials may be required. Pragmatic trials are designed to maximize applicability of trial results to usual care settings by relying on clinically important outcomes and enrolling a wide range of participants. A combination of these approaches is preferable and necessary

Paving the way towards future-proofing our crops

To meet the increasing global demand for food, feed, fibre and other plant-derived products, a steep increase in crop productivity is a scientifically and technically challenging imperative. The CropBooster-P project, a response to the H2020 call ‘Future proofing our plants’, is developing a roadmap for plant research to improve crops critical for the future of European agriculture by increasing crop yield, nutritional quality, value for non-food applications and sustainability. However, if we want to efficiently improve crop production in Europe and prioritize methods for crop trait improvement in the coming years, we need to take into account future socio-economic, technological and global developments, including numerous policy and socio-economic challenges and constraints. Based on a wide range of possible global trends and key uncertainties, we developed four extreme future learning scenarios that depict complementary future developments. Here, we elaborate on how the scenarios could inform and direct future plant research, and we aim to highlight the crop improvement approaches that could be the most promising or appropriate within each of these four future world scenarios. Moreover, we discuss some key plant technology options that would need to be developed further to meet the needs of multiple future learning scenarios, such as improving methods for breeding and genetic engineering. In addition, other diverse platforms of food production may offer unrealized potential, such as underutilized terrestrial and aquatic species as alternative sources of nutrition and biomass production. We demonstrate that although several methods or traits could facilitate a more efficient crop production system in some of the scenarios, others may offer great potential in all four of the future learning scenarios. Altogether, this indicates that depending on which future we are heading toward, distinct plant research fields should be given priority if we are to meet our food, feed and non-food biomass production needs in the coming decades