‘It’s a-me, Mario!’ Exploring dynamic changes and similarities in the composition of early Nintendo video game music

As with films, a thoughtfully composed video game soundtrack has the ability to dramatically enhance and elevate the experience for the audience or player. This article explores the potential issues and difficulties of composing for video game systems by studying the sound-producing hardware and music for two popular systems from one manufacturer. By comparing two of Nintendo’s Super Mario titles, which appeared on both 8-bit and 16-bit systems, through an analysis of the technology, audio, visual (audiovisual), music, and gameplay elements, it is shown that the musical composition was affected by the limitations of processing power. The discussion shows how the composer, Koji Kondo, overcame the issues of limited computing power by using layers of repetition while applying various functions of music for film to enhance player immersion. Kondo composed theme music that has become engrained in popular culture and is synonymous with one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises (Greening, 2014). By attempting to understand the method or approach behind the composition for earlier systems, it is possible to investigate and discuss the evolution of video game music while acknowledging and contributing to the study of music for games. A musical analysis of the Castle and Underwater themes on each system allows for a direct comparison of the compositional approach, while an audiovisual analysis reveals the presence of existing cinematic tropes and identifies potential influences on the creation of effective musical soundtracks for video games. Applying audiovisual theory to games will require the use of existing literature from Lissa (1965), Gorbman (1987), Chion (1994) and Tagg (2004), along with the work of Collins (2005; 2007a; 2007b; 2008a; 2008b), which adapts and applies audiovisual analysis to video games

The development of a humor styles questionnaire for younger children

Despite the adaptation of the humor styles questionnaire for older children a measure suitable for children below the age of eleven was needed. The current research involved three separate studies leading to the creation of the humor styles questionnaire for younger children (HSQ-Y), suitable for those aged 8–11 years. Study one involved the development of a measure to assess aggressive and affiliative humor. Subsequently, study two involved the adaptation of the measure to include all four humor styles, which was administered to children alongside a measure of friendship quality. To provide further validation for the HSQ-Y as a measure, study three involved the administration of the HSQ-Y twice over a three-week period and peer reports of the four humor styles. Several measures of psychosocial adjustment were also included. The HSQ-Y was found to be a reliable and valid measure of the four humor styles in children aged 8–11 years. Associations between the humor styles and psychosocial adjustment variables were also found, supporting the discriminant validity of the measure

Recent Surge in Homicides Involving Young Black Males and Guns: Time To Reinvest in Prevention and Crime Control

This review of recent U.S. homicide trends by race of offenders and victims, as well as weapons used, shows a surge in homicides that involve young Black males and guns

Determination of the financial impact of machine downtime on the Australia Post large letters sorting process

Machine downtime, whether planned or unplanned, is intuitively costly to manufacturing organisations, however is often very difficult to quantify. Costing processes are rarely undertaken within manufacturing organisations. It has previously been estimated that 80% of industrial facilities were unable to accurately cost downtime, with many facilities underestimating the total cost by a factor of 200-300% (Crumrine and Post 2006). It was also acknowledged that the lack of practical guides has hindered costing procedures of any nature being implemented more readily (Dale and Plunkett 1995). Models that did exist rarely considered more than a subset of the costs identified elsewhere, leading to overly conservative estimations. In addition, because cost definitions are not consistent, methodologies for evaluating and quantifying individual costs have not previously been adequately defined. The work outlined in this paper has aimed to develop the first comprehensive methodology for determining the cost of downtime, with particular application to the Australia Post's automated mail processing machines. The method presented may be applied to any manufacturing environment which would benefit from a more complete understanding of the magnitude of the cost of machine or process downtime

Efficient Computation of Invariant Tori in Volume-Preserving Maps

In this paper we implement a numerical algorithm to compute codimension-one tori in three-dimensional, volume-preserving maps. A torus is defined by its conjugacy to rigid rotation, which is in turn given by its Fourier series. The algorithm employs a quasi-Newton scheme to find the Fourier coefficients of a truncation of the series. This technique is based upon the theory developed in the accompanying article by Blass and de la Llave. It is guaranteed to converge assuming the torus exists, the initial estimate is suitably close, and the map satisfies certain nondegeneracy conditions. We demonstrate that the growth of the largest singular value of the derivative of the conjugacy predicts the threshold for the destruction of the torus. We use these singular values to examine the mechanics of the breakup of the tori, making comparisons to Aubry-Mather and anti-integrability theory when possible

Current Developments in Comparative Austronesian Studies

For speakers of Austronesian languages, there has been, for millennia, an intuitive recognition of the connections among related languages. These intuitions are a key part of the capacities that have allowed speakers of different Austronesian languages to communicate with one another, that have facilitated the migration of individuals and groups among different speech communities and that have fostered mutual interrelations among speech communities. All these factors now contribute to making the study of Austronesian languages a challenging comparative field of study. Comparative Austronesian studies are comprised of a variety of disciplines: linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, history and, in recent years, biological and genetic research. Each of these disciplines contributes new perspectives to an understanding of the Austronesian-speaking world. The emergence of such comparative Austronesian research is a recent coalescence of a long development that began with an initial and partial recognition of relations among Austronesian languages. While native speakers often intuitively recognize relations among the languages they use or encounter in their daily lives, no speaker of these languages can grasp the diversity of these thousands of languages nor trace the historical underpinnings of the great variety of speech communities that make up the Austronesian-speaking world. It is precisely because the Austronesian languages had spread so widely from Taiwan to Timor and from Madagascar to Easter Island that comprehension of the relations among these languages came about in stages beginning with voyages in the 16th century

Pivot-Point Procedures in Practical Travel Demand Forecasting

For many cities, regions and countries, large-scale model systems have been developed to support the development of transport policy. These models are intended to predict the traffic flows that are likely to result from assumed exogenous developments and transport policies affecting people and businesses in the relevant area. The accuracy of the model is crucial to determining the quality of the information that can be extracted as input to the planning and policy analysis process. A frequent approach to modelling, which can substantially enhance the accuracy of the model, is to formulate the model as predicting changes relative to a base-year situation. Often, base-year traffic flows can be observed rather accurately and the restriction of the model to predicting differences reduces the scope for errors in the modelling – whether they be caused by errors in the model itself or in the inputs to the model – to influence the outputs. Such approaches are called ‘pivot point’ methods, or sometimes incremental models. The approaches have proved themselves beneficial in practical planning situations and now form part of the recommended ‘VaDMA’ (Variable Demand Modelling Advice) guidelines issued by the UK Department for Transport. While the principle of the pivot point is clear, the implementation of the principle in practical model systems can be done in a number of ways and the choice between these can have substantial influence on the model forecasts. In particular modellers need to consider: 1.whether the change predicted by the model should be expressed as an absolute difference or a proportional ratio, or whether a mixed approach is necessary; 2.how to deal with apparently growth in ‘green-field’ situations when applying these approaches; 3,at what level in the model should the pivoting apply, i.e. at the level of mode choice, destination choice, overall travel frequency or combinations of these; 4,whether the pivoting is best undertaken as an operation conducted on a ‘base matrix’ or the model is constructed so that it automatically reproduces the base year situation with base year inputs. The paper reviews the alternative approaches to each of these issues, discussing current practice and attempting to establish the basis on which alternative approaches might be established; in particular, whether pivoting is treated as a correction to a model which is in principle correctly specified but incorporates some error, perhaps from faulty data, or as a partial replacement for a model that handles at best part of the situation. These views of the pivoting lead to different procedures. It goes on to present and justify the approach that the authors have found useful in a number of large-scale modelling studies in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, pointing out the problems that have led to the calculations that are recommended.

The Numerical Estimation of the Error Induced by the Valence Approximation

We describe a systematic expansion for full QCD. The leading term in the expansion gives the valence approximation. The expansion reproduces full QCD if an infinite number of higher terms are included.Comment: 3 pages, latex, no figures, requires espcrc2.sty (included at end) Contribution to Lattice 94 proceeding

Currents in contemporary Islam in Indonesia

On the 29th of February 2004, thousands of robed members of Hizbut Tahrir marched through the streets of downtown Jakarta to mark the 80th anniversary of the fall of the caliphate when Kemal Ataturk in the name of Turkish nationalism, having already abolished the Ottoman sultanate, deposed its last sultan as Caliph. Hizbut Tahrir is a new Islamic movement in Indonesia, one among many whose primary roots are planted within a wider Islamic ambience outside of Indonesia1. Its call for the restoration of a universal caliphate and its rejection of nationalism and state power would have, in an earlier period under President Suharto, met with immediate suspicion and probable suppression. The movement is a good exemplar of the changing Indonesian Islamic community, pointing metaphorically in two directions: to the contemporary state of ferment in the Islamic world and to historical developments of the past century. Thus the present situation in Indonesia, as indeed within the Islamic world as a whole, may be considered in all of its immediacy or as the continuation of a long and as yet unresolved phase in Muslim history. For those who follow current Islamic debates on the Internet, Hizbut Tahrir is also instructive. Within days of Syaikh Abdurrahman Ad Dimasqiyahs denunciation of the Hizbut Tahrir in a sermon given in English (and probably delivered in England), an appropriately edited version of this sermon appeared in Indonesian on the As-Salafy website. Thus, as has been the case for centuries, Indonesia is firmly, intimately and inextricably linked to diverse sources of ideas and debate in the Islamic world and consequently subject to its many internal reverberations