NIME: A Community of Communities

Commentary on the article Fourteen Years of NIME: The Value and Meaning of Community in Interactive Music Research by A. Marquez-Borbon and P. Stapleton

Dimensional Affect and Expression in Natural and Mediated Interaction

There is a perceived controversy as to whether the cognitive representation of affect is better modelled using a dimensional or categorical theory. This paper first suggests that these views are, in fact, compatible. The paper then discusses this theme and related issues in reference to a commonly stated application domain of research on human affect and expression: human computer interaction (HCI). The novel suggestion here is that a more realistic framing of studies of human affect in expression with reference to HCI and, particularly HCHI (Human-Computer-Human Interaction) entails some re-formulation of the approach to the basic phenomena themselves. This theme is illustrated with several examples from several recent research projects.Comment: Invited article presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics, Tokyo, Japan, 20-23 October, 2007, Proceedings of Fechner Day vol. 23 (2007

A Mimetic Strategy to Engage Voluntary Physical Activity In Interactive Entertainment

We describe the design and implementation of a vision based interactive entertainment system that makes use of both involuntary and voluntary control paradigms. Unintentional input to the system from a potential viewer is used to drive attention-getting output and encourage the transition to voluntary interactive behaviour. The iMime system consists of a character animation engine based on the interaction metaphor of a mime performer that simulates non-verbal communication strategies, without spoken dialogue, to capture and hold the attention of a viewer. The system was developed in the context of a project studying care of dementia sufferers. Care for a dementia sufferer can place unreasonable demands on the time and attentional resources of their caregivers or family members. Our study contributes to the eventual development of a system aimed at providing relief to dementia caregivers, while at the same time serving as a source of pleasant interactive entertainment for viewers. The work reported here is also aimed at a more general study of the design of interactive entertainment systems involving a mixture of voluntary and involuntary control.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, ECAG08 worksho

Machine Intelligence, New Interfaces, and the Art of the Soluble

Position: (1) Partial solutions to machine intelligence can lead to systems which may be useful creating interesting and expressive musical works. (2) An appropriate general goal for this field is augmenting human expression. (3) The study of the aesthetics of human augmentation in musical performance is in its infancy. CHI 2015 Workshop on Collaborating with Intelligent Machines: Interfaces for Creative Sound, April 18, 2015, Seoul, Republic of Kore

Circulation control improvements to rotor lift asymmetry due to reverse flow

Circulation control has been applied to airfoils since the late 1960\u27s, and has been proven to change the aerodynamic performance by altering the interaction of the streamlines without changing the physical characteristics of the airfoil itself. This has many applications in fluid dynamics; the focus of this application is for the replacement of the conventional helicopter rotor blade system with a fly-by-wire, active circulation controlled system. Conventional helicopters use a swashplate and a series of mechanical linkages, bearings, and dampers to create a fully articulated rotor hub system. This system is required to achieve the blade characteristics required for stable flight. The need for such a system stems from the asymmetric lift developed in maneuvering flight conditions, which requires the angle of attack of the blades to be changed based on the rotational position within the rotor plane, also known as the azimuth angle. By alternatively activating blowing slots along the leading and trailing edges of the airfoil, the aerodynamic parameters (i.e. lift and drag) can be changed, effectively changing the angle of attack through streamline alteration thus eliminating the need for physical blade pitch changes.;Mathematical models/codes are used to model and simulate the complex blade dynamics of a full-scale rotorcraft. Many of these codes use a blade element method that separates the rotor into small segments and evaluates the aerodynamic characteristics of these elements as two-dimensional airfoils at different local conditions. These local conditions include, but are not limited to, extreme angles of attack, reverse flow, compressibility effects, dynamic effects, and other aerodynamic phenomena.;This research investigated the reverse flow aerodynamic characteristics of a 10:1 elliptical airfoil with various leading and trailing edge blowing pressures. The testing conditions for the aerodynamic investigation were: angle of attack [154 to 196 degrees]; blowing coefficient [0 to 0.009] and [0 to 0.014] for the leading and trailing edge blowing slots, respectively; and Mach number [0.073 and 0.109].;It is concluded that the potential exists for increasing forward flight speeds for helicopters using circulation control in the reverse flow regions of the helicopter rotor environment. Specifically, it is concluded that positively altering the aerodynamic characteristics, primarily the lift coefficient, in reverse flow, is possible through circulation control. Through this investigation, the general trends were found for the aerodynamic characteristics of a 10:1 circulation controlled elliptical airfoil in reverse flow. These trends led to the selection of blowing configurations to decrease the asymmetric loading condition based on the condition of the local blade environment

Excavating “Excavating AI”: The Elephant in the Gallery

Two art exhibitions, “Training Humans” and “Making Faces,” and the accompanying essay “Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets” by Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, are making substantial impact on discourse taking place in the social and mass media networks, and some scholarly circles. Critical scrutiny reveals, however, a self-contradictory stance regarding informed consent for the use of facial images, as well as serious flaws in their critique of ML training sets. Our analysis underlines the non-negotiability of informed consent when using human data in artistic and other contexts, and clarifies issues relating to the description of ML training sets

Fixed versus Flexible: Lessons from EMS Order Flow

This paper addresses the puzzle of regime-dependent volatility in foreign exchange. We extend the literature in two ways. First, our microstructural model provides a qualitatively new explanation for the puzzle. Second, we test implications of our model using Europe's recent shift to rigidly fixed rates (EMS to EMU). In the model, shocks to order flow induce volatility under flexible rates because they have portfolio-balance effects on price, whereas under fixed rates the same shocks do not have portfolio-balance effects. These effects arise in one regime and not the other because the elasticity of speculative demand for foreign exchange is (endogenously) regime-dependent: low elasticity under flexible rates magnifies portfolio-balance effects; under credibly fixed rates, elasticity of speculative demand is infinite, eliminating portfolio-balance effects. New data on FF/DM transactions show that order flow had persistent effects on the exchange rate before EMU parities were announced. After announcement, determination of the FF/DM rate was decoupled from order flow, as predicted by the model.