Capturing coordination and intentionality in joint musical improvisation.

Humans collaborate with each other on a wide variety of tasks that are often largely improvised and unscripted. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of coordination in a joint musical improvisation task, what the effect of intentions is on coordination, and how musicians propagate these intentions. To quantify coordination within musical trios, we derived per-musician time series of acoustic features to which we applied effective transfer entropy (ETE) and empirical dynamic modeling (EDM), two methods derived from complex systems science. Using ETE allowed us to investigate coordination as directional information flow between musicians, whereas through EDM we conceptualized coordination as the predictability of a complex system. We found that both techniques, when applied to root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude time series, could be used to distinguish coordinating from noncoordinating musicians. Various other feature-technique combinations, such as fractal dimension-ETE and Tonnetz distance-EDM, were also viable. Our results further suggest that coordination improves as an intention gets more shared, that is, as more musicians in the joint improvisation have the same intention. Lastly, we found evidence suggesting that musicians increase the predictability of their playing when seeking to end a performance, though our results did not provide an indication that this was done with the intention of improving coordination with partners

Guidance on the Selection of Appropriate Indicators for Quantification of Antimicrobial Usage in Humans and Animals

An increasing variety of indicators of antimicrobial usage has become available in human and veterinary medicine, with no consensus on the most appropriate indicators to be used. The objective of this review is therefore to provide guidance on the selection of indicators, intended for those aiming to quantify antimicrobial usage based on sales, deliveries or reimbursement data. Depending on the study objective, different requirements apply to antimicrobial usage quantification in terms of resolution, comprehensiveness, stability over time, ability to assess exposure and comparability. If the aim is to monitor antimicrobial usage trends, it is crucial to use a robust quantification system that allows stability over time in terms of required data and provided output; to compare usage between different species or countries, comparability must be ensured between the different populations. If data are used for benchmarking, the system comprehensiveness is particularly crucial, while data collected to study the association between usage and resistance should express the exposure level and duration as a measurement of the exerted selection pressure. Antimicrobial usage is generally described as the number of technical units consumed normalized by the population at risk of being treated in a defined period. The technical units vary from number of packages to number of individuals treated daily by adding different levels of complexity such as daily dose or weight at treatment. These technical units are then related to a description of the population at risk, based either on biomass or number of individuals. Conventions and assumptions are needed for all of these calculation steps. However, there is a clear lack of standardization, resulting in poor transparency and comparability. By combining study requirements with available approaches to quantify antimicrobial usage, we provide suggestions on the most appropriate indicators and data sources to be used for a given study objective

De legitimering vergeleken. Een onderzoek naar de rol van economische, sociale en culturele waarden in het legitimeringsvertoog van gesubsidieerde en private Nederlandse kunstmusea

Deze studie richt zich op het waardevertoog van gesubsidieerde en private kunstmusea in Nederland. Het doel van het onderzoek is om inzicht te verkrijgen in hoe gesubsidieerde en privatie kunstmusea gebruik maken van sociale, economische en culturele waarden om zichzelf te legitimeren en in hoeverre hun argumentaties meer extrinsiek of intrinsiek van aard zijn. Uiteindelijk wordt geconcludeerd in hoeverre de legitimeringsvertogen zijn vereconomiseerd en op wat voor manier zij de cultureel-intrinsieke, of ‘unieke’ waarde van de kunsten, hierin betrekken. De hoofdvraag van het onderzoek is daarom: ‘hoe verhoudt de financieringsmix van Nederlandse kunstmusea zich tot de wijze waarop, en de mate waarin, zij zichzelf en de kunsten legitimeren aan de hand van sociale, economische en culturele waarden?

Capturing Coordination In Musical Joint Improvisation

This repo is associated with the following paper: Vaarten L., & Wiltshire, T. J. (in press). Capturing Coordination and Intentionality in Joint Musical Improvisation. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain. DOI: 10.1037/pmu000029

Capturing Coordination and Intentionality in Joint Musical Improvisation

Humans collaborate with each other on a wide variety of tasks that are often largely improvised and unscripted. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of coordination in a joint musical improvisation task, what the effect of intentions is on coordination, and how musicians propagate these intentions. To quantify coordination within musical trios, we derived per-musician time series of acoustic features to which we applied effective transfer entropy (ETE) and empirical dynamic modeling (EDM), two methods derived from complex systems science. Using ETE allowed us to investigate coordination as directional information flow between musicians, whereas through EDM we conceptualized coordination as the predictability of a complex system. We found that both techniques, when applied to root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude time series, could be used to distinguish coordinating from noncoordinating musicians. Various other feature–technique combinations, such as fractal dimension–ETE and Tonnetz distance–EDM, were also viable. Our results further suggest that coordination improves as an intention gets more shared, that is, as more musicians in the joint improvisation have the same intention. Lastly, we found evidence suggesting that musicians increase the predictability of their playing when seeking to end a performance, though our results did not provide an indication that this was done with the intention of improving coordination with partners

Capturing Coordination In Musical Joint Improvisation

This repo is associated with the following paper: Vaarten L., & Wiltshire, T. J. (in press). Capturing Coordination and Intentionality in Joint Musical Improvisation. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain. DOI: 10.1037/pmu000029