“What Is the Basic Rule of Outside”? : The Construction of a Jazz Improvisation Concept in On-line Environments

Jazz musicians often talk about the changes, referring to the chord sequences of a tune. The changes are the harmonic framework for improvisations, and as such they govern what the appropriate note choices are for improvising over a tune.The changes involve a strong connection between chords and scales, and these two are often understood as vertical vs. horizontal representations of the same tonal material. A musician can, depending on style, personal preferences etc., choose to follow or not to follow these tonal boundaries, improvising either inside the changes or outside the changes. Most of the scholarly writings on jazz have studied aspects of inside playing, such as harmonic-melodic structures and relationships. These boundaries are often understood as rules that govern the tonal content of jazz improvisation. Therefore, a simplified explanation would be to say that to obey these rules is to play inside, and to break them is to play outside. The research question this study attempts to answer is: What is outside said to be in on-line environments? And following that question: How is outside manifested in the recorded jazz improvisations that are used by the online writers to exemplify outside? The term ‘outside’ is commonly used by jazz musicians playing in a post-bop idiom, but despite its frequent use in musicians’ jargon there is no set or standardized definition for it. Using an approach grounded in discourse analysis, I study how the term ‘outside’ is constructed and what attributes are assigned to it. The research material used for analysis consists of posts from online forums, along with online lessons and blog posts. I also apply music analysis to the music examples found in these posts to identify how outside is performed in practice. The study shows that the concept of outside, as it is explained in the online material, cannot be understood without considering its rule-based opposite, inside. Thus, outside is not a direct synonym to terms such as free improvisation, polytonality or atonality but a musical phenomenon in its own right. As the concept is constructed in the research material, outside concerns tonal tension; it does not involve breaking rhythmic, timbral or stylistic boundaries. Certain performance characteristics are as central in outside playing as they are in jazz improvisation in general: playing with good sound; with rhythmic drive and stability; and with confidence and conviction. Finally, there seems to be a collection of rules that govern how, where and when an improviser can break rules of inside in order to achieve outside. These new rules govern how a jazz musician can break the old rules.“Vad är den grundläggande regeln för outside?” Hur ett begrepp inom jazzimprovisation skapas i internet-miljöer. Jazzmusiker talar ofta om the changes, och avser då ackordföljden i en låt. The changes utgör det harmoniska ramverket för musikernas improvisationer, och reglerar vilka toner som passar att spela under ett improviserat solo. The changes är nära knutet till begreppen ’skala’ och ’ackord’ och den starka kopplingen dem emellan, eftersom skalor och ackord ofta ses som vertikala respektive horisontala representationer av ett och samma tonala innehåll. En musiker kan, beroende på stil, personliga preferenser etc., välja att följa eller att inte följa dessa tonala ramar, och improvisera innanför (inside) eller utanför (outside) the changes. De flesta studier kring jazz som musik har fokuserat på aspekter kring spel innanför de tonala gränserna, såsom analyser av harmoniska strukturer och harmonisk-melodiska förhållanden. Dessa ramar uppfattas ofta som regler som styr det tonala innehållet i jazzimprovisation. Att följa reglerna är att spela inside, medan att bryta mot reglerna är att spela outside. Begreppet outside är vanligt förekommande i vokabulären bland jazzmusiker som spelar i ett post-bop idiom, men trots att ordet ofta används saknas en bestämd, allmänt accepterad definition. Genom att använda ett förhållningssätt som utgår från diskursanalysens metoder studerar jag hur begreppet outside konstrueras och vilka attribut som tillskrivs begreppet. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av inlägg från olika internetforum, tillsammans med blogginlägg och online-lektioner. Jag tillämpar även musikanalys på de musikexempel som nämns i materialet, för att identifiera hur outside spelas i praktiken. Denna studie visar att begreppet outside, så som det förklaras i online-materialet, inte kan förstås utan sin motsats, inside. Sålunda är outside inte en synonym till begrepp som fri improvisation, polytonalitet eller atonalitet, utan ett musikaliskt begrepp som står på egna ben. Outside konstrueras i materialet som ett begrepp som rör tonal spänning: att överskrida rytmiska, klangmässiga eller stilistiska ramar ingår inte i begreppet. Vissa element som rör framförandet är lika centrala för outside-spel som de är för improvisation i allmänhet. Hit hör att spela med bra klang och sound, med rytmiskt driv och stabilitet, och att spela med övertygelse och självförtroende. Studien visar att det finns en uppsättning regler som styr hur, var och när en improvisatör kan bryta mot reglerna för inside-spel, för att därigenom spela outside. Dessa nya regler styr hur en jazzmusiker kan bryta de gamla reglerna

Do we really need to catch them all? A new User-guided Social Media Crawling method

With the growing use of popular social media services like Facebook and Twitter it is challenging to collect all content from the networks without access to the core infrastructure or paying for it. Thus, if all content cannot be collected one must consider which data are of most importance. In this work we present a novel User-guided Social Media Crawling method (USMC) that is able to collect data from social media, utilizing the wisdom of the crowd to decide the order in which user generated content should be collected to cover as many user interactions as possible. USMC is validated by crawling 160 public Facebook pages, containing content from 368 million users including 1.3 billion interactions, and it is compared with two other crawling methods. The results show that it is possible to cover approximately 75% of the interactions on a Facebook page by sampling just 20% of its posts, and at the same time reduce the crawling time by 53%. In addition, the social network constructed from the 20% sample contains more than 75% of the users and edges compared to the social network created from all posts, and it has similar degree distribution

Finding Influential Users in Social Media Using Association Rule Learning

Influential users play an important role in online social networks since users tend to have an impact on one other. Therefore, the proposed work analyzes users and their behavior in order to identify influential users and predict user participation. Normally, the success of a social media site is dependent on the activity level of the participating users. For both online social networking sites and individual users, it is of interest to find out if a topic will be interesting or not. In this article, we propose association learning to detect relationships between users. In order to verify the findings, several experiments were executed based on social network analysis, in which the most influential users identified from association rule learning were compared to the results from Degree Centrality and Page Rank Centrality. The results clearly indicate that it is possible to identify the most influential users using association rule learning. In addition, the results also indicate a lower execution time compared to state-of-the-art methods

Demonstrating the Performance and Emission Characteristics of a Variable Compression Ratio, Alvar-Cycle Engine

This paper is a direct continuation of a previous study that addressed the performance and design of a variable compression engine, the Alvar-Cycle Engine [1]. The earlier study was presented at the SAE International Conference and Exposition in Detroit during February 23- 26, 1998 as SAE paper 981027. In the present paper test results from a single cylinder prototype are reviewed and compared with a similar conventional engine. Efficiency and emissions are shown as function of speed, load, and compression ratio. The influence of residual gas on knock characteristics is shown. The potential for high power density through heavy supercharging is analyzed

Expertis, välvilja och integritet. Kontextens inverkan på hur förtroende uppfattas vid köp av konsulttjänster.

SAMMANFATTNING Examensarbetets titel: Expertis, välvilja och integritet. Kontextens inverkan på hur förtroende uppfattas vid köp av konsulttjänster Seminariedatum: 2013-01-17 Ämne/kurs: FEKH29, Examensarbete i Marknadsföring på Kandidatnivå, 15 högskolepoäng Författare: Fredrik Svensson, Martin Erlandsson, Patrik Johansson Handledare: Lars Carlman Fem nyckelord: Förtroende, konsulttjänster, inköpare, Business-to-Business (B2B), kontextberoende. Syfte: Identifiera indikatorer på förtroende ur inköparens perspektiv utifrån Mayer et als. (1995)definition av begreppet för att undersöka hur kontexten påverkar det uppfattade förtroendet. Metod: En kvalitativ forskningsmetod har tillämpats där kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts. För att på så sätt kunna få en mer ingående uppfattning om hur inköpare, utifrån kontexten vid inköp av konsulttjänster, bedömer förtroende utifrån Mayer et als. (1995) tre byggstenar expertis, välvilja och integritet. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Relationsmodellen förklaras först, följt av inköpsprocessen vid köp av tjänster för att få en god inblick i hur inköparens bedömning går till vid köp av konsulttjänster. Därefter presenteras tjänsters komplexitet som följs upp med att behandla de tre olika teoretiska infallsvinklarna inom förtroendeforskningen. Det teoretiska avsnittet belyser sedan Mayer et als. (1995) artikel om de tre byggstenarna. Teorin avslutas med att beskriva de risker som är påtagliga och centrala vid köp av konsulttjänster. Empiri: Semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med sex stycken företag för att svara på studiens syfte och frågeställningar. Tre typer av konsulttjänster har undersökts; städkonsulttjänster, IT-konsulttjänster och tekniska konsulttjänster, varav två intervjuer inom vardera segment genomförts. Resultat: Bedömningen av expertisen görs i stor utsträckning genom referenser där inköparens magkänsla till slut blir avgörande, varför inköparens roll snarare bör belysas ytterligare. Välviljan är kontextberoende och uppfattas på olika sätt beroende på bransch och kundens behov. Integriteten i form av gemensamma värderingar angående etik- och moral ökar i betydelse när konsultföretaget har högre kontakt med inköpsföretagets slutkunder. Vid mindre komplexa tjänster spelar byggstenen välvilja en större roll vid bedömning av förtroendet medan expertisen istället blir avgörande vid högre komplexitet. Bedömningen görs även på samma sätt när risken ökar.ABSTRACT Title: Ability, benevolence and integrity. Contextual impact on how trust is perceived in the purchase of consulting services. Seminar date: 2013-01-17 Course: FEKH29, Degree Project Undergraduate level, Business Administration, Undergraduate level, 15 University Credits Points (UPC) or ECTS‐cr) Authors: Fredrik Svensson, Martin Erlandsson, Patrik Johansson Advisor: Lars Carlman Key words: Trust, consulting services, buyer, Business-to-Business (B2B), contextual dependence Purpose: Identify indicators of trust from the buyer's perspective based on Mayer et als., (1995) definition of the concept in order to explore how context affects how trust is perceived. Methodology: A qualitative research method has been applied where qualitative interviews has been conducted. This in order to obtain a more thorough understanding of the contextual impact in how buyers of consulting services, evaluate trust, according to Mayer et als., (1995) three building blocks ability, benevolence and integrity. Theoretical perspectives: We first illustrate the relationship model and the buying process of services, thereupon we present the overall complexity of services, which is followed up by treating the three different theoretical approaches in trust research. The theoretical section then highlights Mayer et als.,(1995) the three building blocks. In conclusion, we describe the risks that are significant when purchasing consulting services. Empirical foundation: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six companies in order to respond to the purpose of the paper. Three types of consulting services has been investigated; cleaning, IT-services and engineering services, including two interviews within each segment completed. Conclusions: The assessment of ability is largely based on references where the buyer's gut feeling eventually becomes crucial. In the case of benevolence, this notion is largely context dependent and understood in different ways, depending on the industry and the customers needs. Shared values regarding ethics and morality, i.e. integrity, are increasing in importance when the consultancy firm has higher degree of contact with the purchasing company's end customers. In less complex services, benevolence plays a major role in the assessment of trust, while ability instead becomes crucial at higher complexity. The assessment is also made in the same way when the overall risk increases

Аппаратная реализация искусственной нейронной сети на FPGA для распознавания написанных от руки цифр

Материалы XIII Междунар. науч.-техн. конф. (науч. чтения, посвящ. 125-летию со дня рождения П. О. Сухого), Гомель, 22 окт. 2020 г

Neuroinflammatory markers associate with cognitive decline after major surgery:Findings of an explorative study

OBJECTIVE Long‐term cognitive decline is an adverse outcome after major surgery associated with increased risk for mortality and morbidity. We studied the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum biochemical inflammatory response to a standardized orthopedic surgical procedure and the possible association with long‐term changes in cognitive function. We hypothesized that the CSF inflammatory response pattern after surgery would differ in patients having long‐term cognitive decline defined as a composite cognitive z score of ≥1.0 compared to patients without long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months postsurgery. METHODS Serum and CSF biomarkers of inflammation and blood–brain barrier (BBB) integrity were measured preoperatively and up to 48 hours postoperatively, and cognitive function was assessed preoperatively and at 2 to 5 days and 3 months postoperatively. RESULTS Surgery was associated with a pronounced increase in inflammatory biomarkers in both CSF and blood throughout the 48‐hour study period. A principal component (PC) analysis was performed on 52 inflammatory biomarkers. The 2 first PC (PC1 and PC2) construct outcome variables on CSF biomarkers were significantly associated with long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months, but none of the PC construct serum variables showed a significant association with long‐term cognitive decline at 3 months. Patients both with and patients without long‐term cognitive decline showed early transient increases of the astroglial biomarkers S‐100B and glial fibrillary acidic protein in CSF, and in BBB permeability (CSF/serum albumin ratio). INTERPRETATION Surgery rapidly triggers a temporal neuroinflammatory response closely associated with long‐term cognitive outcome postsurgery. The findings of this explorative study require validation in a larger surgical patient cohort. ANN NEUROL 202

Neutrophil depletion reduces edema formation and tissue loss following traumatic brain injury in mice

Background: Brain edema as a result of secondary injury following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major clinical concern. Neutrophils are known to cause increased vascular permeability leading to edema formation in peripheral tissue, but their role in the pathology following TBI remains unclear. Methods: In this study we used controlled cortical impact (CCI) as a model for TBI and investigated the role of neutrophils in the response to injury. The outcome of mice that were depleted of neutrophils using an anti-Gr-1 antibody was compared to that in mice with intact neutrophil count. The effect of neutrophil depletion on blood-brain barrier function was assessed by Evan's blue dye extravasation, and analysis of brain water content was used as a measurement of brain edema formation (24 and 48 hours after CCI). Lesion volume was measured 7 and 14 days after CCI. Immunohistochemistry was used to assess cell death, using a marker for cleaved caspase-3 at 24 hours after injury, and microglial/macrophage activation 7 days after CCI. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney test for non-parametric data. Results: Neutrophil depletion did not significantly affect Evan's blue extravasation at any time-point after CCI. However, neutrophil-depleted mice exhibited a decreased water content both at 24 and 48 hours after CCI indicating reduced edema formation. Furthermore, brain tissue loss was attenuated in neutropenic mice at 7 and 14 days after injury. Additionally, these mice had a significantly reduced number of activated microglia/macrophages 7 days after CCI, and of cleaved caspase-3 positive cells 24 h after injury. Conclusion: Our results suggest that neutrophils are involved in the edema formation, but not the extravasation of large proteins, as well as contributing to cell death and tissue loss following TBI in mice

Human Interactions on Online Social Media : Collecting and Analyzing Social Interaction Networks

Online social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, provides users with services that enable them to interact both globally and instantly. The nature of social media interactions follows a constantly growing pattern that requires selection mechanisms to find and analyze interesting data. These interactions on social media can then be modeled into interaction networks, which enable network-based and graph-based methods to model and understand users’ behaviors on social media. These methods could also benefit the field of complex networks in terms of finding initial seeds in the information cascade model. This thesis aims to investigate how to efficiently collect user-generated content and interactions from online social media sites. A novel method for data collection that is using an exploratory research, which includes prototyping, is presented, as part of the research results in this thesis.   Analysis of social data requires data that covers all the interactions in a given domain, which has shown to be difficult to handle in previous work. An additional contribution from the research conducted is that a novel method of crawling that extracts all social interactions from Facebook is presented. Over the period of the last few years, we have collected 280 million posts from public pages on Facebook using this crawling method. The collected posts include 35 billion likes and 5 billion comments from 700 million users. The data collection is the largest research dataset of social interactions on Facebook, enabling further and more accurate research in the area of social network analysis.   With the extracted data, it is possible to illustrate interactions between different users that do not necessarily have to be connected. Methods using the same data to identify and cluster different opinions in online communities have also been developed and evaluated. Furthermore, a proposed method is used and validated for finding appropriate seeds for information cascade analyses, and identification of influential users. Based upon the conducted research, it appears that the data mining approach, association rule learning, can be used successfully in identifying influential users with high accuracy. In addition, the same method can also be used for identifying seeds in an information cascade setting, with no significant difference than other network-based methods. Finally, privacy-related consequences of posting online is an important area for users to consider. Therefore, mitigating privacy risks contributes to a secure environment and methods to protect user privacy are presented