Amergent Music: behavior and becoming in technoetic & media arts

Merged with duplicate records 10026.1/1082 and 10026.1/2612 on 15.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Technoetic and media arts are environments of mediated interaction and emergence, where meaning is negotiated by individuals through a personal examination and experience—or becoming—within the mediated space. This thesis examines these environments from a musical perspective and considers how sound functions as an analog to this becoming. Five distinct, original musical works explore the possibilities as to how the emergent dynamics of mediated, interactive exchange can be leveraged towards the construction of musical sound. In the context of this research, becoming can be understood relative to Henri Bergson’s description of the appearance of reality—something that is making or unmaking but is never made. Music conceived of a linear model is essentially fixed in time. It is unable to recognize or respond to the becoming of interactive exchange, which is marked by frequent and unpredictable transformation. This research abandons linear musical approaches and looks to generative music as a way to reconcile the dynamics of mediated interaction with a musical listening experience. The specifics of this relationship are conceptualized in the structaural coupling model, which borrows from Maturana & Varela’s “structural coupling.” The person interacting and the generative musical system are compared to autopoietic unities, with each responding to mutual perturbations while maintaining independence and autonomy. Musical autonomy is sustained through generative techniques and organized within a psychogeographical framework. In the way that cities invite use and communicate boundaries, the individual sounds of a musical work create an aural context that is legible to the listener, rendering the consequences or implications of any choice audible. This arrangement of sound, as it relates to human presence in a technoetic environment, challenges many existing assumptions, including the idea “the sound changes.” Change can be viewed as a movement predicated by behavior. Amergent music is brought forth through kinds of change or sonic movement more robustly explored as a dimension of musical behavior. Listeners hear change, but it is the result of behavior that arises from within an autonomous musical system relative to the perturbations sensed within its environment. Amergence propagates through the effects of emergent dynamics coupled to the affective experience of continuous sonic transformation.Rutland Port Authoritie

Health expenditure of employees versus self-employed individuals; a 5-year study.

It is unclear to what extent self‐employed choose to become self‐employed. This study aimed to compare the health care expenditures—as a proxy for health—of self‐employed individuals in the year before they started their business, to that of employees. Differences by sex, age, and industry were studied. In total, 5,741,457 individuals aged 25–65 years who were listed in the tax data between 2010 and 2015 with data on their health insurance claims were included. Self‐employed and employees were stratified according to sex, age, household position, personal income, region, and industry for each of the years covered. Weighted linear regression was used to compare health care expenditures in the preceding (year x–1) between self‐employed and employees (in year x). Compare

BACE2 distribution in major brain cell types and identification of novel substrates

β-Site APP-cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) inhibition is considered one of the most promising therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer's disease, but current BACE1 inhibitors also block BACE2. As the localization and function of BACE2 in the brain remain unknown, it is difficult to predict whether relevant side effects can be caused by off-target inhibition of BACE2 and whether it is important to generate BACE1-specific inhibitors. Here, we show that BACE2 is expressed in discrete subsets of neurons and glia throughout the adult mouse brain. We uncover four new substrates processed by BACE2 in cultured glia: vascular cell adhesion molecule 1, delta and notch-like epidermal growth factor-related receptor, fibroblast growth factor receptor 1, and plexin domain containing 2. Although these substrates were not prominently cleaved by BACE2 in healthy adult mice, proinflammatory TNF induced a drastic increase in BACE2-mediated shedding of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 in CSF. Thus, although under steady-state conditions the effect of BACE2 cross-inhibition by BACE1-directed inhibitors is rather subtle, it is important to consider that side effects might become apparent under physiopathological conditions that induce TNF expression

Optical thickness and effective radius of Arctic boundary-layer clouds retrieved from airborne nadir and imaging spectrometry

Arctic boundary-layer clouds in the vicinity of Svalbard (78° N, 15° E) were observed with airborne remote sensing and in situ methods. The cloud optical thickness and the droplet effective radius are retrieved from spectral radiance data from the nadir spot (1.5°, 350–2100 nm) and from a nadir-centred image (40°, 400–1000 nm). Two approaches are used for the nadir retrieval, combining the signal from either two or five wavelengths. Two wavelengths are found to be sufficient for an accurate retrieval of the cloud optical thickness, while the retrieval of droplet effective radius is more sensitive to the number of wavelengths. Even with the comparison to in-situ data, it is not possible to definitely answer the question which method is better. This is due to unavoidable time delays between the in-situ measurements and the remote-sensing observations, and to the scarcity of vertical in-situ profiles within the cloud

Ozone profiles in the high-latitude stratosphere and lower mesosphere measured by the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS)-II: comparison with other satellite sensors and ozonesondes

A solar occultation sensor, the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS)-II, measured 5890 vertical profiles of ozone concentrations in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere and of other species from January to October 2003. The measurement latitude coverage was 54–71°N and 64–88°S, which is similar to the coverage of ILAS (November 1996 to June 1997). One purpose of the ILAS-II measurements was to continue such high-latitude measurements of ozone and its related chemical species in order to help accurately determine their trends. The present paper assesses the quality of ozone data in the version 1.4 retrieval algorithm, through comparisons with results obtained from comprehensive ozonesonde measurements and four satellite-borne solar occultation sensors. In the Northern Hemisphere (NH), the ILAS-II ozone data agree with the other data within ±10% (in terms of the absolute difference divided by its mean value) at altitudes between 11 and 40 km, with the median coincident ILAS-II profiles being systematically up to 10% higher below 20 km and up to 10% lower between 21 and 40 km after screening possible suspicious retrievals. Above 41 km, the negative bias between the NH ILAS-II ozone data and the other data increases with increasing altitude and reaches 30% at 61–65 km. In the Southern Hemisphere, the ILAS-II ozone data agree with the other data within ±10% in the altitude range of 11–60 km, with the median coincident profiles being on average up to 10% higher below 20 km and up to 10% lower above 20 km. Considering the accuracy of the other data used for this comparative study, the version 1.4 ozone data are suitably used for quantitative analyses in the high-latitude stratosphere in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere and in the lower mesosphere in the Southern Hemisphere

Mouse brain proteomics establishes MDGA1 and CACHD1 as in vivo substrates of the Alzheimer protease BACE1

The protease beta-site APP cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) has fundamental functions in the nervous system. Its inhibition is a major therapeutic approach in Alzheimer's disease, because BACE1 cleaves the amyloid precursor protein (APP), thereby catalyzing the first step in the generation of the pathogenic amyloid beta (A beta) peptide. Yet, BACE1 cleaves numerous additional membrane proteins besides APP. Most of these substrates have been identified in vitro, but only few were further validated or characterized in vivo. To identify BACE1 substrates with in vivo relevance, we used isotope label-based quantitative proteomics of wild type and BACE1-deficient (BACE1 KO) mouse brains. This approach identified known BACE1 substrates, including Close homolog of L1 and contactin-2, which were found to be enriched in the membrane fraction of BACE1 KO brains. VWFA and cache domain-containing protein 1 (CACHD)1 and MAM domain-containing glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor protein 1 (MDGA1), which have functions in synaptic transmission, were identified and validated as new BACE1 substrates in vivo by immunoblots using primary neurons and mouse brains. Inhibition or deletion of BACE1 from primary neurons resulted in a pronounced inhibition of substrate cleavage and a concomitant increase in full-length protein levels of CACHD1 and MDGA1. The BACE1 cleavage site in both proteins was determined to be located within the juxtamembrane domain. In summary, this study identifies and validates CACHD1 and MDGA1 as novel in vivo substrates for BACE1, suggesting that cleavage of both proteins may contribute to the numerous functions of BACE1 in the nervous system

Arctic smoke ? record high air pollution levels in the European Arctic due to agricultural fires in Eastern Europe

International audienceIn spring 2006, the European Arctic was abnormally warm, setting new historical temperature records. During this warm period, smoke from agricultural fires in Eastern Europe intruded into the European Arctic and caused the most severe air pollution episodes ever recorded there. This paper confirms that biomass burning (BB) was indeed the source of the observed air pollution, studies the transport of the smoke into the Arctic, and presents an overview of the observations taken during the episode. Fire detections from the MODIS instruments aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites were used to estimate the BB emissions. The FLEXPART particle dispersion model was used to show that the smoke was transported to Spitsbergen and Iceland, which was confirmed by MODIS retrievals of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and AIRS retrievals of carbon monoxide (CO) total columns. Concentrations of halocarbons, carbon dioxide and CO, as well as levoglucosan and potassium, measured at Zeppelin mountain near Ny Ålesund, were used to further corroborate the BB source of the smoke at Spitsbergen. The ozone (O3) and CO concentrations were the highest ever observed at the Zeppelin station, and gaseous elemental mercury was also enhanced. A new O3 record was also set at a station on Iceland. The smoke was strongly absorbing ? black carbon concentrations were the highest ever recorded at Zeppelin ?, and strongly perturbed the radiation transmission in the atmosphere: aerosol optical depths were the highest ever measured at Ny Ålesund. We furthermore discuss the aerosol chemical composition, obtained from filter samples, as well as the aerosol size distribution during the smoke event. Photographs show that the snow at a glacier on Spitsbergen became discolored during the episode and, thus, the snow albedo was reduced. Samples of this polluted snow contained strongly enhanced levels of potassium, sulphate, nitrate and ammonium ions, thus relating the discoloration to the deposition of the smoke aerosols. This paper shows that, to date, BB has been underestimated as a source of aerosol and air pollution for the Arctic, relative to emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Given its significant impact on air quality over large spatial scales and on radiative processes, the practice of agricultural waste burning should be banned in the future