Calculation of two-dimensional turbulent flow fields

Navier-Stokes equation solutions for two- dimensional turbulent flow fields of compressible viscous flui

Tune in to your emotions: a robust personalized affective music player

The emotional power of music is exploited in a personalized affective music player (AMP) that selects music for mood enhancement. A biosignal approach is used to measure listeners’ personal emotional reactions to their own music as input for affective user models. Regression and kernel density estimation are applied to model the physiological changes the music elicits. Using these models, personalized music selections based on an affective goal state can be made. The AMP was validated in real-world trials over the course of several weeks. Results show that our models can cope with noisy situations and handle large inter-individual differences in the music domain. The AMP augments music listening where its techniques enable automated affect guidance. Our approach provides valuable insights for affective computing and user modeling, for which the AMP is a suitable carrier application

Northerners and Southerners Differ in Conflict Culture

The present study uses regression analysis of existing cross-national data sets to demonstrate that ingroup-outgroup discrimination and intergroup conflict management vary more along the north-south (latitudinal) axis than along the east-west axis of the Earth. Ingroup favoritism, outgroup rejection, political oppression, legal discrimination, and communication bullying are all less prevalent among Northerners than among Southerners in the Northern Hemisphere, but more prevalent among Northerners than among Southerners in the Southern Hemisphere. These findings provide a rich source for further research into how social conflicts are habitually experienced and handled by residents of northern versus southern habitats. A supplementary analysis specifies the extent to which ecological stressors-thermal stress, hydraulic stress, pathogenic stress, and subsistence stress-help explain why there are oppositely sloping north-south gradients of conflict culture above and below the equator. Taken in total, these results demonstrate the importance of considering latitude in forming a deeper understanding of conflict management and negotiation

Human agency, entrepreneurship and regional development: a behavioural perspective on economic evolution and innovative transformation

An emerging position within theories of entrepreneurship and regional development concerns the role of human behaviour. This paper argues that the type and nature of human agency related to entrepreneurship is a significant factor in explaining the capacity of regions to achieve economic evolution through renewal and innovative transformation. It is argued that regional economic ecosystems are a primary result of the agency of a particular cadre of individuals; with the nature of these ecosystems being contingent on the underlying culture and institutional environment within a specific region. Furthermore, it is proposed that the confluence of group-level culture within a city or region and the personality psychology of individuals within these places results in a psychocultural environment that creates certain forms of human agency determining the nature of entrepreneurship. Similarly, the propensity towards entrepreneurial agency will be at least partly determined by the nature of the underlying regional economic ecosystems, especially with regards to apparent opportunity and economic returns. Drawing on these insights, the study outlines the implications for policies that seek to support entrepreneurship at the regional level, while also identifying future research required to further effective policy intervention

Happiness around the world: A combined etic-emic approach across 63 countries

What does it mean to be happy? The vast majority of cross-cultural studies on happiness have employed a Western-origin, or "WEIRD" measure of happiness that conceptualizes it as a self-centered (or "independent"), high-arousal emotion. However, research from Eastern cultures, particularly Japan, conceptualizes happiness as including an interpersonal aspect emphasizing harmony and connectedness to others. Following a combined emicetic approach (Cheung, van de Vijver & Leong, 2011), we assessed the cross-cultural applicability of a measure of independent happiness developed in the US (Subjective Happiness Scale; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) and a measure of interdependent happiness developed in Japan (Interdependent Happiness Scale; Hitokoto & Uchida, 2015), with data from 63 countries representing 7 sociocultural regions. Results indicate that the schema of independent happiness was more coherent in more WEIRD countries. In contrast, the coherence of interdependent happiness was unrelated to a country's "WEIRD-ness." Reliabilities of both happiness measures were lowest in African and Middle Eastern countries, suggesting these two conceptualizations of happiness may not be globally comprehensive. Overall, while the two measures had many similar correlates and properties, the self-focused concept of independent happiness is "WEIRD-er" than interdependent happiness, suggesting cross-cultural researchers should attend to both conceptualizations

Music for a Brighter World: Brightness Judgment Bias by Musical Emotion

A prevalent conceptual metaphor is the association of the concepts of good and evil with brightness and darkness, respectively. Music cognition, like metaphor, is possibly embodied, yet no study has addressed the question whether musical emotion can modulate brightness judgment in a metaphor consistent fashion. In three separate experiments, participants judged the brightness of a grey square that was presented after a short excerpt of emotional music. The results of Experiment 1 showed that short musical excerpts are effective emotional primes that cross-modally influence brightness judgment of visual stimuli. Grey squares were consistently judged as brighter after listening to music with a positive valence, as compared to music with a negative valence. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that the bias in brightness judgment does not require an active evaluation of the emotional content of the music. By applying a different experimental procedure in Experiment 3, we showed that this brightness judgment bias is indeed a robust effect. Altogether, our findings demonstrate a powerful role of musical emotion in biasing brightness judgment and that this bias is aligned with the metaphor viewpoint

The Musicality of Non-Musicians: An Index for Assessing Musical Sophistication in the General Population

Musical skills and expertise vary greatly in Western societies. Individuals can differ in their repertoire of musical behaviours as well as in the level of skill they display for any single musical behaviour. The types of musical behaviours we refer to here are broad, ranging from performance on an instrument and listening expertise, to the ability to employ music in functional settings or to communicate about music. In this paper, we first describe the concept of ‘musical sophistication’ which can be used to describe the multi-faceted nature of musical expertise. Next, we develop a novel measurement instrument, the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) to assess self-reported musical skills and behaviours on multiple dimensions in the general population using a large Internet sample (n = 147,636). Thirdly, we report results from several lab studies, demonstrating that the Gold-MSI possesses good psychometric properties, and that self-reported musical sophistication is associated with performance on two listening tasks. Finally, we identify occupation, occupational status, age, gender, and wealth as the main socio-demographic factors associated with musical sophistication. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical accounts of implicit and statistical music learning and with regard to social conditions of sophisticated musical engagement