Representing Atypical Music Notation Practices: An Example with Late 17th Century Music

From the 17th century towards the first decades of the 18th century music notation slowly looses all influences from mensural music, becoming virtually identical to what we would consider common modern notation. But in these five decades of transformation composers did not just suddenly abandon older notation styles, but they were used alongside the ones that would become standard. Void notation, black notation and uncommon tempi were all mixed together. The scholar preparing modern editions of this music is normally forced to normalize all these atypical notations as many software applications do not support them natively. This paper exemplifies the flexibility of the encoding scheme proposed by the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) and of Verovio, a visualisation library designed for it. The modular approach of these tools means that particular notation systems can be easily added whilst maintaining compatibility to other encoded notations

Verovio: A Library for Engraving MEI Music Notation into SVG

Rendering symbolic music notation is a common component of many MIR applications, and many tools are available for this task. There is, however, a need for a tool that can natively render the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) notation encodings that are increasingly used in music research projects. In this paper, we present Verovio, a library and toolkit for rendering MEI. A significant advantage of Verovio is that it implements MEI’s structure internally, making it the best suited solution for rendering features that make MEI unique. Verovio is designed as a fast, portable, lightweight tool written in pure standard C++ with no dependencies on third-party frameworks or libraries. It can be used as a command-line rendering tool, as a library, or it can be compiled to JavaScript using the Emscripten LLVM-to-JavaScript compiler. This last option is particularly interesting because it provides a complete in-browser music MEI typesetter. The SVG output from Verovio is organized in such a way that the MEI structure is preserved as much as possible. Since every graphic in SVG is an XML element that is easily addressable, Verovio is particularly well-suited for interactive applications, especially in web browsers. Verovio is available under the GPL open-source license

Heuristic and supervised approaches to handwritten annotation extraction for musical score images

Performers' copies of musical scores are typically rich in handwritten annotations, which capture historical and institutional performance practices. The development of rich, interactive interfaces to explore digital archives of these scores and the systematic investigation of their meaning and function will be facilitated by the automatic extraction of handwritten score annotations. We present several approaches to the extraction of handwritten annotations of arbitrary content from digitized images of musical scores. First, we show promising results in certain contexts when using simple unsupervised clustering techniques to identify handwritten annotations in conductors' scores. Next, we compare annotated scores to unannotated copies and use a printed sheet music comparison tool, Aruspix, to recover handwritten annotations as additions to the clean copy. Using both of these techniques in a combined annotation pipeline qualitatively improves the recovery of handwritten annotations. Recent work has shown the effectiveness of reframing classical optical musical recognition tasks as supervised machine learning classification tasks. In the same spirit, we pose the problem of handwritten annotation extraction as a supervised pixel classification task, where the feature space for the learning task is derived from the intensities of neighboring pixels. After an initial investment of time required to develop dependable training data, this approach can reliably extract annotations for entire volumes of score images without further supervision. These techniques are demonstrated using a sample of orchestral scores annotated by professional conductors of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Handwritten annotation extraction in musical scores has applications to the systematic investigation of score annotation practices by performers, annotator attribution, and to the interactive presentation of annotated scores, which we briefly discuss

Bench testing of a new hyperbaric chamber ventilator at different atmospheric pressures

Purpose: Providing mechanical ventilation is challenging at supra-atmospheric pressure. The higher gas density increases resistance, reducing the flow delivered by the ventilator. A new hyperbaric ventilator (Siaretron IPER 1000) is said to compensate for these effects automatically. The aim of this bench test study was to validate the compensation, define its limits and provide details on the ventilator's output at varied atmospheric pressures. Methods: Experiments were conducted inside a multiplace hyperbaric chamber at 1, 2.2, 2.8 and 4 atmospheres absolute (ATA), with the ventilator connected to a test lung. Transducers were recalibrated at each ATA level. Various ventilator settings were tested in volume and pressure control modes. Measured tidal volumes were compared with theoretical predictions based on gas laws. Results: Results confirmed the ventilator's ability to provide compensation, but also identified its limits. The compensation range could be predicted and depended on the maximal flow attainable, decreasing linearly with increasing atmospheric pressure. With settings inside the range, tidal volumes approximated set values (mean error 10±5%). With settings outside the range, the volume was limited to the predicted maximal value calculated from maximal flow. A practical guide for clinicians is provided. Conclusion: The IPER 1000 ventilator attempted to deliver stable tidal volume by adjusting the opening of the inspiratory valve in proportion to atmospheric pressure. Adequate compensation was observed, albeit only within a predictable range, which can be reliably predicted for each setting and ATA level combination. Setting a tidal volume outside this range can result in an unwanted decrease in minute ventilatio

NO signaling functions in the biotic and abiotic stress responses

In the last 1990s, NO became an increasingly popular target of investigation in plants. As in mammals, NO fulfils a broad spectrum of signalling functions in pathophysiological processes in plants. Here we summarize studies published in recent years that provide novel insights into the signalling functions of NO produced by plant cells exposed to abiotic stresses and biotic stress (pathogen-derived elicitors). Particularly, we report that NO emerges as a key messenger governing the overall control of Ca2+ homeostasis. Although the precise signalling functions of NO are poorly understood, its capacity to modulate Ca2+ homeostasis provides an extraordinary and remarkable effective way of conveying information

Encoding Polyphony from Medieval Manuscripts Notated in Mensural Notation

This panel submission for the 2021 Music Encoding Conference brings together five short papers that focus on the making of computer-readable encodings of polyphony in the notational style – mensural notation – in which it was originally copied. Mensural notation was used in the medieval West to encode polyphony from the late thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. The Measuring Polyphony (MP) Online Editor, funded by an NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, is a software that enables non-technical users to make Humdrum and MEI encodings of mensural notation, and links these encodings to digital images of the manuscripts in which these compositions were first notated. Topics explored by the authors include: the processes of, and the goals informing, the linking of manuscript images to music encodings; choices and compromises made in the development process of the MP Editor in order to facilitate its rapid deployment; and the implications of capturing dual encodings – a parts-based encoding that reflects the layout of the original source, and a score-based encoding. Having two encodings of the music data is useful for a variety of activities, including performance and analysis, but also within the editorial process, and for sharing data with other applications. The authors present two case studies that document the possibilities and potential in the interchange of music data between the MP Editor and other applications, specifically, MuRET, an optical music recognition (OMR) tool, and Humdrum analysis tools

Next Steps for Measuring Polyphony: A Prototype Editor for Encoding Mensural Music

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Crafting TabMEI, a Module for Encoding Instrumental Tablatures

In this progress report, we describe the issues encountered during the design and implementation of TabMEI, a new MEI module for encoding instrumental tablatures. We discuss the main challenges faced and lay out our workflow for implementing the TabMEI module. In addition, we present a number of example encodings, and we describe anticipated applications of the module

Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) Algorithm for Nanocrystals

This thesis uses the kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) algorithm to examine the growth morphology and structure of nanocrystals. Crystal growth in a supersaturated gas of atoms and in an undercooled binary melt is investigated. First, in the gas phase, the interplay of the deposition and surface diffusion rates is studied. Then, the KMC algorithm is refined by including solidification events and finally, by adding diffusion in the surrounding liquid. A new algorithm is developed for modelling solidification from an undercooled melt. This algorithm combines the KMC method, which models the change in shape of the crystal during growth, with a macroscopic continuum method that tracks the diffusion of material through solution towards the crystal. For small length and time scales, this approach provides simple, effective front tracking with fully resolved atomistic detail of the crystal-melt interface. Anisotropy is included in the model as a surface diffusion process and the growth rate of the crystal is found to increase monotonically with increase in the surface anisotropy value. The method allows for the study of multiple crystal nuclei and Ostwald ripening. This method will aid researchers to explain why certain crystal shapes form under particular conditions during growth, and may enable nanotechnologists to design techniques for growing nanocrystals with specific shapes for a variety of applications, from catalysis to the medicine field and electronics industry. This will lead to a better understanding of the atomistic process of crystal growth at the nanoscale