Personal-JS

Presented at the 2nd Web Audio Conference (WAC), April 4-6, 2016, Atlanta, Georgia.Personal-JS is a web application based on the Web Audio API and Web RTC standards where connected users play synchronously loops of a well-known song – Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode – together. The user creates or joins a “jam” room, and then can play some audio loops with other users. The application is based on Sync library (http://github.com/collective-soundworks/sync) to synchronize the different devices through the PeerJS WebRTC wrapper (http://peerjs.com) and thus requires no web server, except for serving the audio loops

Latent Spaces for Antimicrobial Peptide Design

Current antibacterial treatments cannot overcome the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotic drugs, and novel treatment methods are required. One option is the development of new antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), to which bacterial resistance build-up is comparatively slow. Deep generative models have emerged as a powerful method for generating novel therapeutic candidates from existing datasets; however, there has been less research focused on evaluating the search spaces associated with these generators. In this research I employ five deep learning model architectures for de novo generation of antimicrobial peptide sequences and assess the properties of their associated latent spaces. I train a RNN, RNN with attention, WAE, AAE and Transformer model and compare their abilities to construct desirable latent spaces in 32, 64, and 128 dimensions. I assess reconstruction accuracy, generative capability, and model interpretability and demonstrate that while most models are able to create a partitioning in their latent spaces into regions of low and high AMP sampling probability, they do so in different manners and by appealing to different underlying physicochemical properties. In this way I demonstrate several benchmarks that must be considered for such models and suggest that for optimization of search space properties, an ensemble methodology is most appropriate for design of new AMPs. I design an AMP discovery pipeline and present candidate sequences and properties from three models that achieved high benchmark scores. Overall, by tuning models and their accompanying latent spaces, targeted sampling of anti-microbial peptides with ideal characteristics is achievable

ECON: a Kernel Basis Pursuit Algorithm with Automatic Feature Parameter Tuning, and its Application to Photometric Solids Approximation

International audienceThis paper introduces a new algorithm, namely the Equi-Correlation Network (ECON), to perform supervised classification, and regression. ECON is a kernelized LARS-like algorithm, by which we mean that ECON uses an $l_1$ regularization to produce sparse estimators, ECON efficiently rides the regularization path to obtain the estimator associated to any regularization constant values, and ECON represents the data by way of features induced by a feature function. The originality of ECON is that it automatically tunes the parameters of the features while riding the regularization path. So, ECON has the unique ability to produce optimally tuned features for each value of the constant of regularization. We illustrate the remarkable experimental performance of ECON on standard benchmark datasets; we also present a novel application of machine learning in the field of computer graphics, namely the approximation of photometric solids

Designing Wiimprovisation for Mediation in Group Music Therapy with Children Suffering from Behavioral Disorders

International audienceWe present qualitative experimental evidence that the "Wiimprovisation" process of using Nintendo Wiimotes as virtual instruments linked to a musical sound system within the framework of Group Music Therapy sessions can provide effective psychodynamic mediation for patients. We designed and implemented specific modalities for movement-based sound control and tested our tool in two clinical settings with children (age 7 to 12) suffering from behavioral disorders. Our preliminary results show immediate acceptance of, long term motivation for and meaningful expression through our system by patients. Future work will focus on assessing the therapeutic potential of our platform's personalization features in a controlled experiment

The Paradox of Tropical Karst Morphology in the Coral Reefs of the Arid Middle East

Despite differences in reef growth between the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, a common distinctive pattern of polygonal sills surrounding ponded depressions consistently occurs in shallow water. Viewed from a satellite, these seafloors are reticulated and maze like. Despite little current rainfall, this patterning is best explained by karst dissolution of limestone during periods of lower sea level. This is a paradox since such fine-scale karstification is confined to areas with considerably more precipitation than currently observed in Arabia. We resolve this apparent contradiction by developing a Pleistocene–Holocene chronology of sea level and climate for the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, and through the use of pattern analysis and computer simulation, reveal the mechanism of formation for these structures. We demonstrate that this patterning can be taken as a Quaternary signature of paleohumidity in the now hyperarid Red Sea and Arabian Gulf

Dégâts dus à l'aleurode Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) en culture cotonnière : évolutions récentes en Afrique de l'Ouest

En Afrique de l'Ouest, les dégâts infligés par Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) au cotonnier ont pris une gravité particulière en 1998, avec l'extension au Burkina Faso et au Mali d'un désordre connu jusqu'alors seulement au Cameroun : la maladie des cotonniers rouges. Ce type de dégâts, supposé lié à une toxémiase, se manifeste en phase de maturation capsulaire par une coloration rougeâtre du feuillage. Il peut entraîner des portes significatives de récolte si les dates de semis ne sont pas maîtrisées. L'aleurode devient un élément important du parasitisme du cotonnier en Afrique de l'Ouest, avec trois types de dégâts : la production de miellat, la vection de virus et Ia maladie des cotonniers rouges. (Résumé d'auteur

Red Sea Coral Reef Trajectories Over 2 Decades Suggest Increasing Community Homogenization and Decline in Coral Size

Three independent line intercept transect surveys on northern Red Sea reef slopes conducted in 1988/9 and 1997/8 in Egypt and from 2006–9 in Saudi Arabia were used to compare community patterns and coral size. Coral communities showed scale-dependent variability, highest at fine spatial and taxonomic scale (species-specific within and among reef patterns). At coarser scale (generic pattern across regions), patterns were more uniform (regionally consistent generic dominance on differently exposed reef slopes and at different depths). Neither fine- nor coarse-scale patterns aligned along the sampled 1700 km latitudinal gradient. Thus, a latitudinal gradient that had been described earlier from comparable datasets, separating the Red Sea into three faunistic zones, was no longer apparent. This may indicate subtle changes in species distributions. Coral size, measured as corrected average intercept of corals in transects, had decreased from 1997 to 2009, after having remained constant from 1988 to 1997. Recruitment had remained stable (~12 juvenile corals per m2). Size distributions had not changed significantly but large corals had declined over 20 years. Thus, data from a wide range of sites taken over two decades support claims by others that climate change is indeed beginning to show clear effects on Red Sea reefs

Habitat Mapping in the Farasan Islands (Saudi Arabia) Using CASI and QuickBird Imagery

Map products derived from remote sensing technology increase our understanding and ability to manage tropical marine environments. The enhanced mapping capabilities of hyperspectral sensors are well understood; yet technology uptake, particularly for large scale tasks, has been slow. The study presented represents one of the largest hyperspectral projects to date, and paves the way towards increased use of this technology. Hyperspectral CASI-550 imagery and multispectral QuickBird imagery, was acquired over 3,168 km2 of the Farasan Islands. In addition to the typical image processing steps, inopportune water condensation in the CASI sensors lens necessitated further processing to remove an across-track artifact. We present a simple protocol for correcting this abnormality, utilizing an abundance of optically deep water to model and correct the error. Investment in optical, bathymetric, and other supporting field data, along with the acquisition of the QuickBird imagery was vital. Data pre-processing facilitated thematic mapping with accuracy comparable to other studies, while allowing the use of spectral unmixing to discriminate coral from within algae dominated patches in shallow water (0-5 m) environments. The unmixing model proved robust, was readily adaptable to the CASI sensor and provides additional habitat information beyond the level of thematic mapping alone