Kinect-ed Piano

We describe a gesturally-controlled improvisation system for an experimental pianist, developed over several laboratory sessions and used during a performance [1] at the 2011 Conference on New Inter- faces for Musical Expression (NIME). We discuss the architecture and performative advantages and limitations of our gesturally-controlled improvisation system, and reflect on the lessons learned throughout its development. KEYWORDS: piano; improvisation; gesture recognition; machine learning

The Metamorphosis of Katniss Everdeen: The Hunger Games, Myth, and Femininity

This essay articulates the ties between the heroine of\ua0The Hunger Games, the goddess Artemis, and the mythic character Philomela. Both Artemis and Philomela offer Katniss Everdeen different models of femininity, but ultimately she rejects\ua0inherited models\ua0and makes\ua0her own

Canoe Trip

Perfect, he said as he carved his knife into the surgical wound, exposing another layer of fascia. We were standing in the operating theatre: he, the surgical chief resident, and I, a third-year medical student. It was the first of many appendectomies I would scrub in for during my surgical rotation. The patient was a I2-year-old boy who had come to the Grand Valley Hospital emergency room that day. He had a low-grade fever, sweats, and periumbilical pain that had migrated to the right lower quadrant of his abdomen. After quizzing me on various anatomical structures, removing the inflamed appendix, and closing the wound, he said, Let\u27s go finish rounds

The Daily Texan

Texas Student Medi

Wheat Farmers' Seed Management and Varietal Adoption in Kenya

Wheat is the second most important crop in Kenya after maize and is becoming an important source of food both for humans and livestock. Despite increasing wheat production, only 50% of domestic consumption requirements are being met. While the National Plant Breeding Research Centre at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute has released more than 100 wheat varieties since it began operations in 1927, adoption has been slow in spite of better performance of new varieties. This study examined factors that influence farmers' adoption of new varieties in the Narok, Nakuru, and Uasin Gishu Districts that account for 80% of Kenya's domestic wheat production. The study found that most farmers in these Districts neither knew nor grew new wheat varieties, reflecting lack of seed and knowledge of these new varieties. Wheat varieties were also often not adopted in agroecological zones for which they were targeted. This should be an issue of concern to wheat breeders since varieties are currently bred specifically for agroecological zones. The main sources of wheat seed (old and new) for both small-scale and large-scale farmers were other farmers. The adoption of new wheat varieties was significantly higher among large-scale farmers in the high potential zone in Uasin Gishu District than among small-scale farmers in the low potential zone in Nakuru and Narok Districts. The logit model showed that experience in wheat farming had a positive impact on adoption of new wheat varieties. These factors will need to be taken into account by researchers, extension specialists, and policy makers.Crop Production/Industries,

Common Space as Threshold Space: Urban Commoning in Struggles to Re-appropriate Public Space

This paper will explore contemporary practices of urban commoning while attempting to construct a theoretical argument on the inherently emancipating potentialities of common space. Urban commoning will be considered as a set of spatial practices through which space is created both as a good to be shared and as a medium that can give form to institutions of sharing. In order for commoning to remain an open process that continuously expands without being contained in any form of enclosure, it has to invite newcomers. Shared spaces, open to newcomers, are spaces defined neither by a prevailing authority that supervises their use, nor by a closed community that controls them by excluding all ‘outsiders’. Common spaces are thus dependent upon their power to communicate and connect rather than separate. Common spaces are threshold spaces, connecting and comparing adjacent areas at the same time. In practices of common space creation, commoners create areas of encounter and collective self-management. Rules of use are also of a threshold character, constantly in the making. Likewise, subjects of use are threshold subjects: for commoning to remain open and ever expanding, commoners have to consider themselves open to transformative negotiations with newcomers.This paper will thus attempt to understand urban commoning as a multifaceted process which produces spaces, subjects of use (inhabitants) and rules of use (institutions) that share the same qualitative characteristics. In such a prospect, urban commoning can prefigure forms of social relations based on sharing, cooperation and solidarity. In this way, space becomes not simply a common product but also the means through which egalitarian social relations can potentially be shaped.