Learning Timbre Analogies from Unlabelled Data by Multivariate Tree Regression

This is the Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the Journal of New Music Research, November 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis. The published article is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09298215.2011.596938

Adjuvant formulation for veterinary vaccines: Montanide™ Gel safety profile

AbstractSelecting the adjuvant is one of the key for the success of the vaccine in the field. Selecting a flexible adjuvant that will fit with several vaccines dedicated to one or more animal species is a source of economical efficiency. Frequently the safety or efficacy obtained with one model is different from another: there are few adjuvants fitting with the expectation of more than one animal species. Montanide™ Gel an innovative polymeric adjuvant have been tested in several animals. Our studies demonstrated the ability to use this adjuvant in dogs, cattle and pig vaccines. Three trials were performed to validate Montanide™ Gel ability to be used in cattle, pigs and dogs. Respectively, vaccines were formulated with ovalbumin in cattle, Pasteurella Multocida anatoxin and Bordetella bronchiseptica cell walls for pig and finally with parvovirus associated to two leptospira valence for dog model. All antigenic media used in the three trials were inactivated. In all trial, safety was followed through behaviour and temperature measurement as well as histology studies.Montanide™ Gel adjuvant can be used associated with a wide range of antigenic media. Nevertheless, the uses of such adjuvant need validation in avian and fish vaccines

A Zoomable Mapping of a Musical Parameter Space Using Hilbert Curves

The final publication is available at Computer Music Journal via http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/COMJ_a_0025

An empirical approach towards the efficient and optimal production of influenza-neutralizing ovine polyclonal antibodies demonstrates that the novel adjuvant CoVaccine HT(TM) is functionally superior to Freund's adjuvant

Passive immunotherapies utilising polyclonal antibodies could have a valuable role in preventing and treating infectious diseases such as influenza, particularly in pandemic situations but also in immunocompromised populations such as the elderly, the chronically immunosuppressed, pregnant women, infants and those with chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to optimise current methods used to generate ovine polyclonal antibodies. Polyclonal antibodies to baculovirus-expressed recombinant influenza haemagglutinin from A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 H1N1 (PR8) were elicited in sheep using various immunisation regimens designed to investigate the priming immunisation route, adjuvant formulation, sheep age, and antigen dose, and to empirically ascertain which combination maximised antibody output. The novel adjuvant CoVaccine HT™ was compared to Freund’s adjuvant which is currently the adjuvant of choice for commercial production of ovine polyclonal Fab therapies. CoVaccine HT™ induced significantly higher titres of functional ovine anti-haemagglutinin IgG than Freund’s adjuvant but with fewer side effects, including reduced site reactions. Polyclonal hyperimmune sheep sera effectively neutralised influenza virus in vitro and, when given before or after influenza virus challenge, prevented the death of infected mice. Neither the age of the sheep nor the route of antigen administration appeared to influence antibody titre. Moreover, reducing the administrated dose of haemagglutinin antigen minimally affected antibody titre. Together, these results suggest a cost effective way of producing high and sustained yields of functional ovine polyclonal antibodies specifically for the prevention and treatment of globally significant diseases.Natalie E. Stevens, Cara K. Fraser, Mohammed Alsharifi, Michael P. Brown, Kerrilyn R. Diener, John D. Haybal

Immunization with Cocktail of HIV-Derived Peptides in Montanide ISA-51 Is Immunogenic, but Causes Sterile Abscesses and Unacceptable Reactogenicity

BACKGROUND: A peptide vaccine was produced containing B and T cell epitopes from the V3 and C4 Envelope domains of 4 subtype B HIV-1 isolates (MN, RF, CanO, & Ev91). The peptide mixture was formulated as an emulsion in incomplete Freund's adjuvant (IFA). METHODS: Low-risk, healthy adult subjects were enrolled in a randomized, placebo-controlled dose-escalation study, and selected using criteria specifying that 50% in each study group would be HLA-B7+. Immunizations were scheduled at 0, 1, and 6 months using a total peptide dose of 1 or 4 mg. Adaptive immune responses in16 vaccine recipients and two placebo recipients after the 2nd immunization were evaluated using neutralization assays of sera, as well as ELISpot and ICS assays of cryopreserved PBMCs to assess CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses. In addition, (51)Cr release assays were performed on fresh PBMCs following 14-day stimulation with individual vaccine peptide antigens. RESULTS: 24 subjects were enrolled; 18 completed 2 injections. The study was prematurely terminated because 4 vaccinees developed prolonged pain and sterile abscess formation at the injection site-2 after dose 1, and 2 after dose 2. Two other subjects experienced severe systemic reactions consisting of headache, chills, nausea, and myalgia. Both reactions occurred after the second 4 mg dose. The immunogenicity assessments showed that 6/8 vaccinees at each dose level had detectable MN-specific neutralizing (NT) activity, and 2/7 HLA-B7+ vaccinees had classical CD8 CTL activity detected. However, using both ELISpot and ICS, 8/16 vaccinees (5/7 HLA-B7+) and 0/2 controls had detectable vaccine-specific CD8 T-cell responses. Subjects with moderate or severe systemic or local reactions tended to have more frequent T cell responses and higher antibody responses than those with mild or no reactions. CONCLUSIONS: The severity of local responses related to the formulation of these four peptides in IFA is clinically unacceptable for continued development. Both HIV-specific antibody and T cell responses were induced and the magnitude of response correlated with the severity of local and systemic reactions. If potent adjuvants are necessary for subunit vaccines to induce broad and durable immune responses, careful, incremental clinical evaluation is warranted to minimize the risk of adverse events. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00000886

Generation of Humoral Immune Responses to Multi-Allele PfAMA1 Vaccines; Effect of Adjuvant and Number of Component Alleles on the Breadth of Response

There is increasing interest in multi-allele vaccines to overcome strain-specificity against polymorphic vaccine targets such as Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1). These have been shown to induce broad inhibitory antibodies in vitro and formed the basis for the design of three Diversity-Covering (DiCo) proteins with similar immunological effects. The antibodies produced are to epitopes that are shared between vaccine alleles and theoretically, increasing the number of component AMA1 alleles is expected to broaden the antibody response. A plateau effect could however impose a limit on the number of alleles needed to achieve the broadest specificity. Moreover, production cost and the vaccine formulation process would limit the number of component alleles. In this paper, we compare rabbit antibody responses elicited with multi-allele vaccines incorporating seven (three DiCos and four natural AMA1 alleles) and three (DiCo mix) antigens for gains in broadened specificity. We also investigate the effect of three adjuvant platforms on antigen specificity and antibody functionality. Our data confirms a broadened response after immunisation with DiCo mix in all three adjuvants. Higher antibody titres were elicited with either CoVaccine HT™ or Montanide ISA 51, resulting in similar in vitro inhibition (65–82%) of five out of six culture-adapted P. falciparum strains. The antigen binding specificities of elicited antibodies were also similar and independent of the adjuvant used or the number of vaccine component alleles. Thus neither the four extra antigens nor adjuvant had any observable benefits with respect to specificity broadening, although adjuvant choice influenced the absolute antibody levels and thus the extent of parasite inhibition. Our data confirms the feasibility and potential of multi-allele PfAMA1 formulations, and highlights the need for adjuvants with improved antibody potentiation properties for AMA1-based vaccines

A computational study on outliers in world music

The comparative analysis of world music cultures has been the focus of several ethnomusicological studies in the last century. With the advances of Music Information Retrieval and the increased accessibility of sound archives, large-scale analysis of world music with computational tools is today feasible. We investigate music similarity in a corpus of 8200 recordings of folk and traditional music from 137 countries around the world. In particular, we aim to identify music recordings that are most distinct compared to the rest of our corpus. We refer to these recordings as ‘outliers’. We use signal processing tools to extract music information from audio recordings, data mining to quantify similarity and detect outliers, and spatial statistics to account for geographical correlation. Our findings suggest that Botswana is the country with the most distinct recordings in the corpus and China is the country with the most distinct recordings when considering spatial correlation. Our analysis includes a comparison of musical attributes and styles that contribute to the ‘uniqueness’ of the music of each country