BWSNet: Automatic Perceptual Assessment of Audio Signals

This paper introduces BWSNet, a model that can be trained from raw human judgements obtained through a Best-Worst scaling (BWS) experiment. It maps sound samples into an embedded space that represents the perception of a studied attribute. To this end, we propose a set of cost functions and constraints, interpreting trial-wise ordinal relations as distance comparisons in a metric learning task. We tested our proposal on data from two BWS studies investigating the perception of speech social attitudes and timbral qualities. For both datasets, our results show that the structure of the latent space is faithful to human judgements

Is maize B chromosome preferential fertilization controlled by a single gene?

In previous work, genotypes for high and low B chromosome transmission rate were selected from a native race of maize. It was demonstrated that the B transmission is genetically controlled. The present work reports the fourth and fifth generations of selection and the F1 hybrids between the lines. The native B is characterized by a constant behaviour, with normal meiosis and nondisjunction in 100% of postmeiotic mitosis. It is concluded that genetic variation for B transmission between the selected lines is due to the preferential fertilization process. The F1 hybrids show intermediate B transmission rate between the lines. They are uniform, the variance of the selected character being one order of magnitude lower than that of the native population. In addition, 0B×2B and 2B×2B crosses were made to study the effect of the presence of B chromosomes in the female parent, resulting in non-significant differences. Several crosses were made both in Buenos Aires and in Madrid to compare the possible environmental effect, but significant differences were not found. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis of a single major gene controlling B transmission rate in maize, which acts in the egg cell at the haploid level during fertilization. It is also hypothesized that maize Bs use the normal maize fertilization process to promote their own transmission.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Is maize B chromosome preferential fertilization controlled by a single gene?

In previous work, genotypes for high and low B chromosome transmission rate were selected from a native race of maize. It was demonstrated that the B transmission is genetically controlled. The present work reports the fourth and fifth generations of selection and the F1 hybrids between the lines. The native B is characterized by a constant behaviour, with normal meiosis and nondisjunction in 100% of postmeiotic mitosis. It is concluded that genetic variation for B transmission between the selected lines is due to the preferential fertilization process. The F1 hybrids show intermediate B transmission rate between the lines. They are uniform, the variance of the selected character being one order of magnitude lower than that of the native population. In addition, 0B×2B and 2B×2B crosses were made to study the effect of the presence of B chromosomes in the female parent, resulting in non-significant differences. Several crosses were made both in Buenos Aires and in Madrid to compare the possible environmental effect, but significant differences were not found. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis of a single major gene controlling B transmission rate in maize, which acts in the egg cell at the haploid level during fertilization. It is also hypothesized that maize Bs use the normal maize fertilization process to promote their own transmission.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Loop A Is Critical for the Functional Interaction of Two Beta vulgaris PIP Aquaporins

Research done in the last years strongly support the hypothesis that PIP aquaporin can form heterooligomeric assemblies, specially combining PIP2 monomers with PIP1 monomers. Nevertheless, the structural elements involved in the ruling of homo versus heterooligomeric organization are not completely elucidated. In this work we unveil some features of monomer-monomer interaction in Beta vulgaris PIP aquaporins. Our results show that while BvPIP2;2 is able to interact with BvPIP1;1, BvPIP2;1 shows no functional interaction. The lack of functional interaction between BvPIP2;1 and BvPIP1;1 was further corroborated by dose-response curves of water permeability due to aquaporin activity exposed to different acidic conditions. We also found that BvPIP2;1 is unable to translocate BvPIP1;1-ECFP from an intracellular position to the plasma membrane when co-expressed, as BvPIP2;2 does. Moreover we postulate that the first extracellular loop (loop A) of BvPIP2;1, could be relevant for the functional interaction with BvPIP1;1. Thus, we investigate BvPIP2;1 loop A at an atomic level by Molecular Dynamics Simulation (MDS) and by direct mutagenesis. We found that, within the tetramer, each loop A presents a dissimilar behavior. Besides, BvPIP2;1 loop A mutants restore functional interaction with BvPIP1;1. This work is a contribution to unravel how PIP2 and PIP1 interact to form functional heterooligomeric assemblies. We postulate that BvPIP2;1 loop A is relevant for the lack of functional interaction with BvPIP1;1 and that the monomer composition of PIP assemblies determines their functional properties.Fil: Jozefkowicz, Cintia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina;Fil: Rosi, Pablo Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentina;Fil: Sigaut, Lorena. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Microscopías Avanzadas; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina;Fil: Soto, Gabriela Cynthia. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias. Centro de Investigación de Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina;Fil: Pietrasanta, Lia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Microscopías Avanzadas; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina;Fil: Amodeo, Gabriela. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina;Fil: Alleva, Karina Edith. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

Is maize B chromosome preferential fertilization controlled by a single gene?

In previous work, genotypes for high and low B chromosome transmission rate were selected from a native race of maize. It was demonstrated that the B transmission is genetically controlled. The present work reports the fourth and fifth generations of selection and the F1 hybrids between the lines. The native B is characterized by a constant behaviour, with normal meiosis and nondisjunction in 100% of postmeiotic mitosis. It is concluded that genetic variation for B transmission between the selected lines is due to the preferential fertilization process. The F1 hybrids show intermediate B transmission rate between the lines. They are uniform, the variance of the selected character being one order of magnitude lower than that of the native population. In addition, 0B×2B and 2B×2B crosses were made to study the effect of the presence of B chromosomes in the female parent, resulting in non-significant differences. Several crosses were made both in Buenos Aires and in Madrid to compare the possible environmental effect, but significant differences were not found. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis of a single major gene controlling B transmission rate in maize, which acts in the egg cell at the haploid level during fertilization. It is also hypothesized that maize Bs use the normal maize fertilization process to promote their own transmission.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Etude des Similarités et des Spécificités dans la Perception d'Attributs Sonores

La communication entre professionnels du son repose sur l’emploi cohérent d’une terminologie spécifique. Au sein de ce vocabulaire, brillant, chaud, rond et rugueux sont quatre attributs sonores bien connus, dont l’utilisation demande une signification commune. À ce jour, il n'existe pas de caractérisation acoustique de ces attributs, ou de preuve de l’effet de l'expertise sur la perception qui leur est associée. Nous proposons une méthode pour évaluer la perception d’attributs sonores et leur lien avec des caractéristiques acoustiques. Trois groupes de participants (ingénieurs du son, chefs d'orchestre et non-experts) ont évaluer chaque attribut avec un corpus de 520 sons d'instruments d'orchestre, dans un paradigme de Best-Worst Scaling. Dans ce paradigme, les participants doivent indiquer selon un attribut, le meilleur et le pire élément au sein de groupes de sons tirés du corpus principal. De plus, nous avons extrait les caractéristiques acoustiques des sons afin de révéler leurs contributions à la perception de chaque attribut. Nos résultats montrent que le groupe d'ingénieurs du son est le plus cohérent. Étonnamment, alors que la brillance est l'attribut le plus employé pour décrire les sons, il est le moins consensuel ; et inversement pour la rugosité. Ainsi, la perception de la brillance est liée au centroïde spectral pour les ingénieurs du son, au centroïde spectral et à une attaque franche pour les chefs d’orchestre, et à la hauteur et la quantité de bruit pour les non-experts. La rugosité est caractérisée de manière relativement identique d'une population à l'autre, et associée à une nature bruitée du son et une attaque lente, suggérant une représentation indépendante de toute expertise sonore. Enfin, la chaleur et la rondeur sont globalement perçues de manière similaires et essentiellement liées à un centroïde spectral bas, contrairement à la brillance

Shared Mental Representations Underlie Metaphorical Sound Concepts

Communication between sound and music experts is based on the shared understanding of a metaphorical vocabulary derived from other sensory modalities. Yet, the impact of sound expertise on the mental representation of these sound concepts remains blurry. To address this issue, we investigated the acoustic portraits of four metaphorical sound concepts (brightness, warmth, roundness, and roughness) in three groups of participants (sound engineers, conductors, and non-experts). Participants (N=24) rated a corpus of orchestral instrument sounds (N=520) using Best-Worst Scaling. With this data-driven method, we sorted the sound corpus for each concept and population. We compared the population ratings and ran machine learning algorithms to unveil the acoustic portraits of each concept. Overall, the results revealed that sound engineers were the most consistent. We found that roughness is widely shared while brightness is expertise dependent. The frequent use of brightness by expert populations suggests that its meaning got specified through sound expertise. As for roundness and warmth, it seems that the importance of pitch and noise in their acoustic definition is the key to distinguishing them. These results provide crucial information on the mental representations of a metaphorical vocabulary of sound and whether it is shared or refined by sound expertise

Molecular mechanism of myoglobin autoxidation: Insights from computer simulations

Myoglobin (Mb) and hemoglobin have the biological ability to carry/store oxygen (O2), a property which requires its heme iron atom to be in the ferrous -Fe(II)- state. However, the thermodynamically stable state in the presence of O2 is Fe(III) and thus the oxidation rate of a globin is a critical parameter related to its function. Mb has been extensively studied and many mutants have been characterized regarding its oxygen mediated oxidation (i.e., autoxidation) rates. Site directed mutants in residues 29 (B10), which shapes the distal cavity, and 64 (E7), the well-known histidine gate, have been shown to display a wide range of autoxidation rate constants. In this work, we have thoroughly studied the mechanism underlying the autoxidation process by means of state-of-the-art computer simulation methodologies, using Mb and site directed mutants as benchmark cases. Our results explain the observed autoxidation rate tendencies in different variants of Mb, L29F < wt < L29A = H64Q < H64F < H64A, and shed light on several aspects of the reaction at the atomic level. First, water access to the distal pocket is a key event and the observed acid catalysis relies on HisE7 protonation and opening of the His gate to allow water access, rather than protonation of the oxy heme itself. Our results also suggest that the basic mechanism, i.e., superoxide displacement by hydroxide anion, is energetically more feasible. Finally, we confirmed that distal hydrogen bonds protect the oxy complex from autoxidation.Fil: Arcon, Juan Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Rosi, Pablo Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Petruk, Ariel Alcides. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Marti, Marcelo Adrian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Estrin, Dario Ariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentin

Shared mental representations underlie metaphorical sound concepts

Abstract Communication between sound and music experts is based on the shared understanding of a metaphorical vocabulary derived from other sensory modalities. Yet, the impact of sound expertise on the mental representation of these sound concepts remains blurry. To address this issue, we investigated the acoustic portraits of four metaphorical sound concepts (brightness, warmth, roundness, and roughness) in three groups of participants (sound engineers, conductors, and non-experts). Participants (N = 24) rated a corpus of orchestral instrument sounds (N = 520) using Best–Worst Scaling. With this data-driven method, we sorted the sound corpus for each concept and population. We compared the population ratings and ran machine learning algorithms to unveil the acoustic portraits of each concept. Overall, the results revealed that sound engineers were the most consistent. We found that roughness is widely shared while brightness is expertise dependent. The frequent use of brightness by expert populations suggests that its meaning got specified through sound expertise. As for roundness and warmth, it seems that the importance of pitch and noise in their acoustic definition is the key to distinguishing them. These results provide crucial information on the mental representations of a metaphorical vocabulary of sound and whether it is shared or refined by sound expertise

Customized design of electronic noses placed on top of air-lift bioreactors for in situ monitoring the off-gas patterns

A specially designed electronic nose was coupled to an air-lift bioreactor in order to perform on-line monitoring of released vapors. The sensor array was placed at the top of the bioreactor sensing the headspace in equilibrium with the evolving liquor at any time without the need of aspiration and pumping of gases into a separated sensor chamber. The device was applied to follow the off-gas of a bioreactor with Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans grown on beds of elemental sulfur under aerobic conditions. Evolution was monitored by acid titration, pH and optical density measurements. The electronic nose was capable to differentiate each day of reactor evolution since inoculation within periods marked off culture medium replacements using multivariate data analysis. Excellent discrimination was obtained indicating the potentiality for on-line monitoring in non-perturbed bioreactors. The prospects for electronic nose/bioreactor merging are valuable for whatever the bacterial strain or consortium used in terms of scent markers to monitor biochemical processes. © Springer-Verlag 2011.Fil: Rosi, Pablo Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Miscoria, Silvia Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia; ArgentinaFil: Bernik, Delia Leticia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; ArgentinaFil: Negri, Ricardo Martin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentin