Score extraction usign MPEG-4 T/F partial encoding

This paper describes the preliminary work in the development of an MPEG-4 audio transcoder between the time/frequency (T/F) and the structured audio (SA) formats. Our approach consists in not going from T/F format through to waveform data and back again to SA, but extracting the score information from an intermediate stage. For this intermediate form we have chosen the input of the filterbank and block switching tool, which consists of frequency data. This data is the result of windowing and applying the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) to the signal. The size of the window to be used is determined in a frame-by-frame basis by a psychoacoustics analysis of the data. In this paper we show that this approach is feasible by developing a system which extracts the score information from the filterbank and block switching tool output in a MPEG-4 T/F encoder by adapting and fine-tuning some existing processing techniques.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Misinformative advertising

This paper analyzes how advertising can be used to mislead rivals in an oligopoly environment with demand uncertainty. In particular, we examine a two-period game in which two firms each sell a differentiated product whose attractiveness vis-à-vis the competitor's product is unknown. In each period, a firm sets prices for its product and exerts an advertising effort that is imperfectly observed by the rival later on. Advertising is persuasive in that it enhances willingness to pay, but it can also be used to manipulate rivals' beliefs about initially unobservable differences in consumers' quality perceptions. In equilibrium, each firm uses advertising to persuade consumers and to interfere with the rival's learning about this unknown dimension of demand. This can be done because the effect of imperfectly observed advertising cannot be separated out of the effect of the unknown quality differential, which creates a signal extraction problem for the competitor. There always exists acontinuum of (symmetric) equilibria, but refining the equilibrium set selects out a unique one in which firms price in the first-period as in the static equilibrium, whereas the misinformative usage of advertising makes firms under advertise if and only if the marginal cost of advertising is high enough.Firms; Productivity; Catalonia; Innovation;

Language and Collective Identity in Buñuel. Propaganda in the Film «España 1936»

En la memoria colectiva de los europeos, la Guerra Civil española ocupa un lugar destacado. El lenguaje cinematográfico y la representación fílmica de esa contienda forman un ámbito relevante en el que estudiar algunos rasgos de la matriz cultural europea. El presente trabajo selecciona parte de la producción fílmica de propaganda del gobierno republicano, en concreto los filmes de montaje supervisados por Luis Buñuel. Al inicio de la contienda el cineasta aragonés vuelve a París siguiendo las indicaciones del Ministerio español de Asuntos Exteriores para colaborar, en la embajada española en la capital francesa, en diversas labores de contraespionaje y propaganda. Entre ellas y principalmente, Buñuel se ocupa de reunir, organizar y montar diverso material fílmico prorrepublicano. A diferencia de otras producciones proyectadas en España, los filmes parisinos de propaganda republicana se caracterizaron, en términos generales, por estar dirigidas a públicos de distintos países europeos con el objetivo de romper la doctrina de no intervención en el conflicto y se inscriben dentro de las teorías y concepción de Buñuel sobre el documentalismo filmado, donde primaba lo reflexivo y los recursos psicológicos que motivaran a la acción o a la toma de conciencia individual. El presente texto se ocupa, en ese contexto, de la descripción y el análisis del lenguaje y las prácticas fílmicas en esos años. De todas ellas, el filme «España, 1936» (1937), es a la vez un ejemplo emblemático y singular

New Approaches to Oxirane Containing Natural Products: Stereoselective Total Synthesis of the Antitumor Agents Gummiferol and Depudecin

La comunicación presenta la síntesis total de productos naturales con actividad antitumoral caracterizados estructuralmente por la presencia de anillos de oxirano. Para ello se empleó una nueva metodología de epoxidación asimétrica basada en una nueva clase de iluros de azufre quirales. Mediante esta metodología se realizaron las síntesis de los productos naturales Gummiferol y DepudecinaUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Social Profiles and Social Behaviour and Attitudes towards Gaming and On-Line Gaming in Spain

For the last two decades our world has experienced increasing globalization linked to the revolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) leading to new business spheres escaping from the traditional Nation-State control. The gaming business is one of these areas and has recorded a notable increase in profits in the last decade: gambling, betting and network games constitute some of the main issues developed by ICT companies located beyond State control. The action of the States is focusing on the formulation of new public policies that allow them to control these activities. But first a deep social description of gaming is needed to know which actors are involved in this field of activities, which is the profile of the gamer and what kind of social attitudes are carried out by users and companies taking part of the business. This article focuses on the social profiles and the social behaviour and attitudes towards gaming in Spain, and specially in the transition from traditional gaming to on line gaming.gaming, internet, social profiles, social behaviour, social attitudes.

The quantum Arnold transformation

By a quantum version of the Arnold transformation of classical mechanics, all quantum dynamical systems whose classical equations of motion are non-homogeneous linear second-order ordinary differential equations, including systems with friction linear in velocity, can be related to the quantum free-particle dynamical system. This transformation provides a basic (Heisenberg-Weyl) algebra of quantum operators, along with well-defined Hermitian operators which can be chosen as evolution-like observables and complete the entire Schr\"odinger algebra. It also proves to be very helpful in performing certain computations quickly, to obtain, for example, wave functions and closed analytic expressions for time-evolution operators.Comment: 19 pages, minor changes, references update