Spectral pitch distance and microtonal melodies

We present an experiment designed to test the effectiveness of spectral pitch distance at modeling the degree of “affinity” or “fit” of pairs of successively played tones or chords (spectral pitch distance is the cosine distance between salience-weighted, Gaussian-smoothed, pitch domain embeddings of spectral pitches—typically the first eight to ten partials of a tone). The results of a previously conducted experiment, which collected ratings of the perceived similarity and fit of root-position major and minor triads, suggest the model works well for pairs of triads in standard 12-tone equal temperament tunings. The new experiment has been designed to test the effectiveness of spectral pitch distance at modeling the affinity of tones in microtonal melodies where the partials of the tones can be variably tempered between being perfectly harmonic and perfectly matched to the underlying microtonal tuning. The use of microtonal tunings helps to disambiguate innate perceptual (psychoacoustical) responses from learned (cultural) responses. Participants are presented with a software synthesizer containing two unlabeled controls: one adjusts the precise tuning of the tones; the other adjusts the extent to which the spectrum is tempered to match the tuning (as set by the first control). A selection of microtonal melodies are played in different tunings, and the participants adjust one, or both, controls until they find a “sweet spot” at which the music sounds most “in-tune” and the notes best “fit” together. The results of these experiments will be presented and discussed

Metrics for pitch collections

Models of the perceived distance between pairs of pitch collections are a core component of broader models of the perception of tonality as a whole. Numerous different distance measures have been proposed, including voice-leading, psychoacoustic, and pitch and interval class distances; but, so far, there has been no attempt to bind these different measures into a single mathematical framework, nor to incorporate the uncertain or probabilistic nature of pitch perception (whereby tones with similar frequencies may, or may not, be heard as having the same pitch). To achieve these aims, we embed pitch collections in novel multi-way expectation arrays, and show how metrics between such arrays can model the perceived dissimilarity of the pitch collections they embed. By modeling the uncertainties of human pitch perception, expectation arrays indicate the expected number of tones, ordered pairs of tones, ordered triples of tones and so forth, that are heard as having any given pitch, dyad of pitches, triad of pitches, and so forth. The pitches can be either absolute or relative (in which case the arrays are invariant with respect to transposition). We provide a number of examples that show how the metrics accord well with musical intuition, and suggest some ways in which this work may be developed

Hex Player—a virtual musical controller

In this paper, we describe a playable musical interface for tablets and multi-touch tables. The interface is a generalized keyboard, inspired by the Thummer, and consists of an array of virtual buttons. On a generalized keyboard, any given interval always has the same shape (and therefore fingering); furthermore, the fingering is consistent over a broad range of tunings. Compared to a physical generalized keyboard, a virtual version has some advantages—notably, that the spatial location of the buttons can be transformed by shears and rotations, and their colouring can be changed to reflect their musical function in different scales. We exploit these flexibilities to facilitate the playing not just of conventional Western scales but also a wide variety of microtonal generalized diatonic scales known as moment of symmetry, or well-formed, scales. A user can choose such a scale, and the buttons are automatically arranged so their spatial height corresponds to their pitch, and buttons an octave apart are always vertically above each other. Furthermore, the most numerous scale steps run along rows, while buttons within the scale are light-coloured, and those outside are dark or removed. These features can aid beginners; for example, the chosen scale might be the diatonic, in which case the piano’s familiar white and black colouring of the seven diatonic and five chromatic notes is used, but only one scale fingering need ever be learned (unlike a piano where every key needs a different fingering). Alternatively, it can assist advanced composers and musicians seeking to explore the universe of unfamiliar microtonal scales

Investigating the impact of occupant response time on computer simulations of the WTC North Tower evacuation

This work explores the impact of response time distributions on high-rise building evacuation. The analysis utilises response times extracted from printed accounts and interviews of evacuees from the WTC North Tower evacuation of 11 September 2001. Evacuation simulations produced using these “real” response time distributions are compared with simulations produced using instant and engineering response time distributions. Results suggest that while typical engineering approximations to the response time distribution may produce reasonable evacuation times for up to 90% of the building population, using this approach may underestimate total evacuation times by as much as 61%. These observations are applicable to situations involving large high-rise buildings in which travel times are generally expected to be greater than response time

Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids increases neuronal vulnerability to mitochondrial dysfunction in the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)

This work was funded jointly by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Scottish Government, and The Wellcome Trust, under the Insect Pollinators Initiative (United Kingdom) Grant BB/ 1000313/1 (to C.N.C.).The global decline in the abundance and diversity of insect pollinators could result from habitat loss, disease, and pesticide exposure. The contribution of the neonicotinoid insecticides (e.g., clothianidin and imidacloprid) to this decline is controversial, and key to understanding their risk is whether the astonishingly low levels found in the nectar and pollen of plants is sufficient to deliver neuroactive levels to their site of action: the bee brain. Here we show that bumblebees (Bombusterrestris audax) fed field levels [10 nM, 2.1 ppb (w/w)] of neonicotinoid accumulate between 4 and 10 nM in their brains within 3 days. Acute (minutes) exposure of cultured neurons to 10 nM clothianidin, but not imidacloprid, causes a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-dependent rapid mitochondrial depolarization. However, a chronic (2 days) exposure to 1 nM imidacloprid leads to a receptor-dependent increased sensitivity to a normally innocuous level of acetylcholine, which now also causes rapid mitochondrial depolarization in neurons. Finally, colonies exposed to this level of imidacloprid show deficits in colony growth and nest condition compared with untreated colonies. These findings provide a mechanistic explanation for the poor navigation and foraging observed in neonicotinoid treated bumblebee colonies.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Seasonal Variation in Children's Physical Activity and Sedentary Time.

PURPOSE: Understanding seasonal variation in physical activity is important for informing public health surveillance and intervention design. The aim of the current study was to describe seasonal variation in children's objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time. METHODS: Data are from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Participants were invited to wear an accelerometer for 7 d on five occasions between November 2008 and January 2010. Outcome variables were sedentary time (2241 counts per minute, min·d(-1)). The season was characterized using a categorical variable (spring, summer, autumn, or winter) and a continuous function of day of the year. Cross-classified linear regression models were used to estimate the association of each of these constructs with the outcome variables. Modification of the seasonal variation by sex, weight status, urban/rural location, parental income, and day of the week (weekday/weekend) was examined using interaction terms in regression models. RESULTS: At least one wave of valid accelerometer data was obtained from 704 participants (47% male; baseline age, 7.6 (0.3) yr). MVPA was lower in autumn and winter relative to spring, with the magnitude of this difference varying by weekday/weekend, sex, weight status, urban/rural location, and family income (P for interaction <0.05 in all cases). Total sedentary time was greater in autumn and winter compared with spring; the seasonal effect was stronger during the weekend than during the weekday (P for interaction <0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Lower levels of MVPA and elevated sedentary time support the implementation of intervention programs during autumn and winter. Evidence of greater seasonal variation in weekend behavior and among certain sociodemographic subgroups highlights targets for tailored intervention programs.The co-operation of the participating families is gratefully acknowledged. The fourth sweep of the Millennium Cohort Study was funded by grants to Professor Health Joshi, former director of the study, from the Economic and Social Research Council and a consortium of government funders. The current director is Professor Lucinda Platt. The authors acknowledge: the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education for the use of these data; the UK Data Service for making them available; the MRC Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health (Grant reference G0400546), Institute of Child Health, University College London for creating the accelerometer data resource which was funded by the Wellcome Trust (grant reference 084686/Z/08/A). The institutions and funders acknowledged bear no responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of these data. The work of Andrew J Atkin, Flo Harrison, and Esther M F van Sluijs was supported, wholly or in part, by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence (RES-590-28-0002). Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Department of Health, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. The work of Soren Brage, Stephen Sharp and Esther MF van Sluijs was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/7, MC_UU_12015/3, MC_UU_12015/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wolters Kluwer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1249/MSS.000000000000078

Prevalence and correlates of screen time in youth: an international perspective.

BACKGROUND: Screen time (including TV viewing/computer use) may be adversely associated with metabolic and mental health in children. PURPOSE: To describe the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of screen time in an international sample of children aged 4-17 years. METHODS: Data from the International Children's Accelerometry Database were collected between 1997-2009 and analyzed in 2013. Participants were 11,434 children (48.9% boys; mean [SD] age at first assessment, 11.7 [3.2] years). Exposures were sex, age, weight status, maternal education, and ethnicity. The outcome was self- or proxy-reported screen time 2 hours/day. Analyses were conducted initially at study level and then combined using random-effects meta-analysis. RESULTS: Within each contributing study, at least two thirds of participants exceeded 2 hours/day of screen time. In meta-analytic models, overweight or obese children were more likely to exceed 2 hours/day of screen time than those who were non-overweight (OR=1.58, 95% CI=1.33,1.88). Girls (vs boys: 0.65; 0.54, 0.78) and participants with more highly educated mothers (vs <university level: 0.53; 0.42, 0.68) were less likely to exceed 2 hours/day of screen time. Associations of age and ethnicity with screen time were inconsistent at study level and non-significant in pooled analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Screen time in excess of public health guidelines was highly prevalent, particularly among boys, those who were overweight or obese, and those with mothers of lower educational attainment. The population-attributable risk associated with this exposure is potentially high; further efforts to understand the determinants of within- and between-country variation in these behaviors and inform the development of effective behavior change intervention programs is warranted.The work of Andrew J Atkin was supported by the UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UK Clinical Research Collaboration Public Health Research Centre of Excellence (RES-590-28-0002). Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. The work of Esther M F van Sluijs and Kirsten Corder was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/7).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2014.07.04

A recurrent 14q32.2 microdeletion mediated by expanded TGG repeats

Nearly all recurrent microdeletion/duplication syndromes described to date are characterized by the presence of flanking low copy repeats that act as substrates for non-allelic homologous recombination (NAHR) leading to the loss, gain or disruption of dosage sensitive genes. We describe an identical 1.11 Mb heterozygous deletion of 14q32.2 including the DLK1/GTL2 imprinted gene cluster in two unrelated patients. In both patients, the deleted chromosome 14 was of paternal origin, and consistent with this both exhibit clinical features compatible with uniparental disomy (UPD) (14)mat. Using a high-resolution oligonucleotide array, we mapped the breakpoints of this recurrent deletion to large flanking (TGG)n tandem repeats, each approximately 500 bp in size and sharing ≥88% homology. These expanded (TGG)n motifs share features with known fragile sites and are predicted to form strong guanine quadruplex secondary structures. We suggest that this recurrent deletion is mediated either by NAHR between the TGG repeats, or alternatively results from their inherent instability and/or strong secondary structure. Our results define a recurrent microdeletion of the 14q32.2 imprinted gene cluster mediated by flanking (TGG)n repeats, identifying a novel mechanism of recurrent genomic rearrangement. Our observation that expanded repeats can act as catalysts for genomic rearrangement extends the role of triplet repeats in human disease, raising the possibility that similar repeat structures may act as substrates for pathogenic rearrangements genome-wid

The 2009 European Society of Human Genetics Meeting: novel technologies driving change

A report on the meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics, Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2009

Range-Wide Migratory Connectivity of Painted Buntings

The Painted Bunting (Passerina cirus) is a small (~16g), short/medium-distance migratory songbird that is listed as a species of conservation concern by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Painted Buntings breed in two distinct populations, one eastern population and one interior population, separated by a 500 km gap that stretches from Mississippi to Georgia. I analyzed tracking data from 112 Painted Buntings from 11 different breeding sites to explore how individuals from different breeding sites differ in wintering location (chapter 2) and migratory timing (chapter 3). Additionally, I examined differences in migratory behavior between male and females in the eastern population (chapter 4). My results reveal that eastern and interior Painted Buntings remain separate throughout the annual cycle. Within each population, individuals from different regions of each population mix extensively on the non-breeding ground. Migratory timing was drastically different between the two populations, with interior Painted Buntings departing the breeding ground two months prior to birds from the eastern population. In eastern Painted Buntings, some variation in fall departure could be attributed to differences in vegetation greenness and temperature, suggesting that eastern birds may adjust their fall departure from year to year in accordance with yearly variation in environmental conditions. Fall departure was not closely linked to environmental conditions in the interior population. I found that eastern Painted Buntings arrive on the breeding ground at approximately the same time each year, suggesting that spring arrival timing may have a strong instinctual component. In eastern Painted Buntings, males arrived on the breeding ground before females, but I found no differences in fall departure timing between the sexes. In the eastern population, females wintered slightly farther north on average than males. This work demonstrates the considerable differences in migratory behavior that are possible within a single species