Ground Systems Development Environment (GSDE) interface requirements and prototyping plan

This report describes the data collection and requirements analysis effort of the Ground System Development Environment (GSDE) Interface Requirements study. It identifies potential problems in the interfaces among applications and processors in the heterogeneous systems that comprises the GSDE. It describes possible strategies for addressing those problems. It also identifies areas for further research and prototyping to demonstrate the capabilities and feasibility of those strategies and defines a plan for building the necessary software prototypes

Real-time segmentation of the temporal evolution of musical sounds

Since the studies of Helmholtz, it has been known that the temporal evolution of musical sounds plays an important role in our perception of timbre. The accurate temporal segmentation of musical sounds into regions with distinct characteristics is therefore of interest to researchers in the field of timbre perception as well as to those working with different forms of sound modelling and manipulation. Following recent work by Hajda (1996), Peeters (2004) and Caetano et al (2010), this paper presents a new method for the automatic segmentation of the temporal evolution of isolated musical sounds in real-time. We define attack, sustain and release segments using cues from a combination of the amplitude envelope, the spectro- temporal evolution and a measurement of the stability of the sound that is derived from the onset detection function. We conclude with an evaluation of the method

Python for audio signal processing

This paper discusses the use of Python for developing audio signal processing applications. Overviews of Python language, NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib are given, which together form a powerful platform for scientic computing. We then show how SciPy was used to create two audio programming libraries, and describe ways that Python can be integrated with the SndObj library and Pure Data, two existing environments for music composition and signal processing

SIMPL: A Python Library for Sinusoidal Modelling

This paper introduces Simpl, a new open source library for sinusoidal modelling written in Python. The library is presented as a resource for researchers in spectral signal processing, who might like to access existing methods and techniques. The text provides an overview of the design of the library, describing its data abstractions and integration with other systems. This is complemented by some brief examples exploring the functionality of the library

Real-Time Detection of Musical Onsets with Linear Prediction and Sinusoidal Modelling

Real-time musical note onset detection plays a vital role in many audio analysis processes, such as score following, beat detection and various sound synthesis by analysis methods. This paper provides a review of some of the most commonly used techniques for real-time onset detection. We suggest ways to improve these techniques by incorporating linear prediction, as well as presenting a novel algorithm for real-time onset detection using sinusoidal modelling. We provide comprehensive results for both the detection accuracy and the computational performance of all of the described techniques, evaluated using Modal, our new open source library for musical onset detection, which comes with a free database of samples with hand-labelled note onsets

Bodianus atrolumbus (Valenciennes 1839), a valid species of labrid fish from the southwest Indian Ocean

Bodianus atrolumbus (Valenciennes 1839), a labrid fish of the southwest Indian Ocean (type locality Mauritius), was placed in the synonymy of B. perditio (Quoy & Gaimard), antitropical in the Pacific Ocean (type locality Tonga), by Smith (1949) who reported the first record for southern Africa. Juveniles of both species are mostly the same in color, featuring a white bar in the middle of the body, followed dorsally by a large black area. The white bar develops into an oval yellow area dorsally on the body in B. perditio, whereas it narrows to a spindle-shaped whitish to pink mark on the upper body that extends below the lateral line in B. atrolumbus. An analysis of the mitochondrial DNA barcode sequence (COI) from specimens collected from all quadrants of the the species’ range reveals that the two species are 3.91% different (K2P minimum interspecific distance), while intraspecific variation is no more than 0.34%. A phenetic tree of barcode sequences for twenty Bodianus species is presented, showing that pairwise species differences range from 1.97% to 21.74%, with Indian/Pacific sibling-species pairs accounting for the lower range of divergences (1.97% to 4.64%). A modal difference in the count of gill rakers and the distinctly shorter pectoral fins of B. atrolumbus additionally differentiate it from B. perditio

Satellite-Based Assessment of Grassland Conversion and Related Fire Disturbance in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

Spruce beetle-induced (Dendroctonus rufipennis (Kirby)) mortality on the Kenai Peninsula has been hypothesized by local ecologists to result in the conversion of forest to grassland and subsequent increased fire danger. This hypothesis stands in contrast to empirical studies in the continental US which suggested that beetle mortality has only a negligible effect on fire danger. In response, we conducted a study using Landsat data and modeling techniques to map land cover change in the Kenai Peninsula and to integrate change maps with other geospatial data to predictively map fire danger for the same region. We collected Landsat imagery to map land cover change at roughly five-year intervals following a severe, mid-1990s beetle infestation to the present. Land cover classification was performed at each time step and used to quantify grassland encroachment patterns over time. The maps of land cover change along with digital elevation models (DEMs), temperature, and historical fire data were used to map and assess wildfire danger across the study area. Results indicate the highest wildfire danger tended to occur in herbaceous and black spruce land cover types, suggesting that the relationship between spruce beetle damage and wildfire danger in costal Alaskan forested ecosystems differs from the relationship between the two in the forests of the coterminous United States. These change detection analyses and fire danger predictions provide the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (KENWR) ecologists and other forest managers a better understanding of the extent and magnitude of grassland conversion and subsequent change in fire danger following the 1990s spruce beetle outbreak