Postprocessing Technique for Algorithmically Composed Melodies

The Harmoniser project aims to provide a practical tool to aid music composers in creating complete musical works. In this paper, we present a formal model of its second layer, tonal chord progressions and modulations to neighbouring tonalities, and a practical implementation using the Gecode constraint solver. Since music composition is too complex to formalize in its entirety, the Harmoniser project makes two assumptions for tractability: first, it focuses on tonal music (the basis of Western classical and popular music); second, it defines a simplified four-layer composition process that is relevant for a significant number of composers. Previous work on using constraint programming for music composition was limited to exploring the formalisation of different musical aspects and did not address the overall problem of building a practical composer tool. Harmoniser's four layers are global structure (tonal development of the whole piece), chord progressions (diatonic and chromatic) and modulations, voicing (four-voice chord layout), and ornaments (e.g., passing notes, appoggiaturas), all allowing iterative refinement by the composer. This paper builds on prior work for voicing layer 3, Diatony, and presents a model for layer 2, chord progressions and modulations. The results of the present paper can be used as input to Diatony to generate voicing. Future work will define models for the remaining layers, and combine all layers together with a graphical user interface as a plug-in for a DAW.

Deep-learning-based image reconstruction and noise reduction methods (DLIR) have been increasingly deployed in clinical CT. Accurate image quality assessment of these methods is challenging as the performance measured using physical phantoms may not represent the true performance of DLIR in patients since DLIR is trained mostly on patient images. In this work, we aim to develop a patient-data-based virtual imaging trial framework and, as a first application, use it to measure the spatial resolution properties of a DLIR method. The patient-data-based virtual imaging trial framework consists of five steps: (1) insertion of lesions into projection domain data using the acquisition geometry of the patient exam to simulate different lesion characteristics; (2) insertion of noise into projection domain data using a realistic photon statistical model of the CT system to simulate different dose levels; (3) creation of DLIR-processed images from projection or image data; (4) creation of ensembles of DLIR-processed patient images from a large number of noise and lesion realizations; and (5) evaluation of image quality using ensemble DLIR images. This framework was applied to measure the spatial resolution of a ResNet based deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) trained on patient images. Lesions in a cylindrical shape and different contrast levels (-500, -100, -50, -20, -10 HU) were inserted to the lower right lobe of the liver in a patient case. Multiple dose levels were simulated (50%, 25%, 12.5%). Each lesion and dose condition had 600 noise realizations. Multiple reconstruction and denoising methods were used on all the noise realizations, including the original filtered-backprojection (FBP), iterative reconstruction (IR), and the DCNN method with three different strength setting (DCNN-weak, DCNN-medium, and DCNN-strong). Mean lesion signal was calculated by performing ensemble averaging of all the noise realizations for each lesion and dose condition and then subtracting the lesion-present images from the lesion absent images. Modulation transfer functions (MTFs) both in-plane and along the z-axis were calculated based on the mean lesion signals. The standard deviations of MTFs at each condition were estimated with bootstrapping: randomly sampling (with replacement) all the DLIR/FBP/IR images from the ensemble data (600 samples) at each condition. The impact of varying lesion contrast, dose levels, and denoising strengths were evaluated. Statistical analysis with paired t-test was used to compare the z-axis and in-plane spatial resolution of five algorithms for five different contrasts and three dose levels. The in-plane and z-axis spatial resolution degradation of DCNN becomes more severe as the contrast or radiation dose decreased, or DCNN denoising strength increased. In comparison with FBP, a 59.5% and 4.1% reduction of in-plane and z-axis MTF (in terms of spatial frequencies at 50% MTF), respectively, was observed at low contrast (-10 HU) for DCNN with the highest denoising strength at 25% routine dose level. When the dose level reduces from 50% to 12.5% of routine dose, the in-plane and z-axis MTFs reduces from 92.1% to 76.3%, and from 98.9% to 95.5%, respectively, at contrast of -100 HU, using FBP as the reference. For most conditions of contrasts and dose levels, significant differences were found among the five algorithms, with the following relationship in both in-plane and cross-plane spatial resolution: FBP>DCNN-Weak>IR>DCNN-Medium>DCNN-Strong. The spatial resolution difference among algorithms decreases at higher contrast or dose levels. A patient-data-based virtual imaging trial framework was developed and applied to measuring the spatial resolution properties of a DCNN noise reduction method at different contrast and dose levels using real patient data. As with other non-linear image reconstruction and post-processing techniques, the evaluated DCNN method degraded the in-plane and z-axis spatial resolution at lower contrast levels, lower radiation dose, and higher denoising strength.

A hybrid refinement scheme for intra- and cross- corpora phonetic segmentation

The main objective of this study is the substantiation of experiment as one of the key features of the world music in Ukraine. Based on the creative works of the brightest world music representatives in Ukraine, «Dakha Brakha» band, the experiment is regarded as a kind of creative setting. Methodology and scientific approaches. The methodology was based on the music practice theory by T. Cherednychenko. The author distinguishes four binary oppositions, which can describe the musical practice. According to one of these oppositions («observance of the canon or violation of the canon»), the musical practices, to which the Ukrainian musicology usually classifies the world music («folk music» and «minstrel music»), are compared with the creative work of «Dakha Brakha» band. Study findings. A lack of the setting to experiment in the musical practices of the «folk music» and «minstrel music» separates the world music musical practice from them. Therefore, the world music is a separate type of musical practice in which the experiment is crucial. The study analyzed several scientific articles of Ukrainian musicologists on the world music; examined the history of the Ukrainian «Dakha Brakha» band; presented a list of the folk songs used in the fifth album «The Road» by «Dakha Brakha» band; and showed the degree of the source transformation by musicians based on the example of the «Monk» song. The study findings can be used to form a comprehensive understanding of the world music musical practice. The further studies may be related to clarification of the other parameters of the world music musical practice, and to determination of the experiment role in creative works of the other world music representatives, both Ukrainian and foreign. The practical study value is the ability to use its key provisions in the course of modern music in higher artistic schools of Ukraine. Originality / value. So far, the Ukrainian musicology did not consider the experiment role as the key one in the world music.

Numerical weather prediction (NWP) models produce a quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF), which is vital for a wide range of applications, especially for accurate flash flood forecasting. The under- and over-estimation of forecast uncertainty pose operational risks and often encourage overly conservative decisions to be made. Since NWP models are subject to many uncertainties, the QPFs need to be post-processed. The NWP biases should be corrected prior to their use as a reliable data source in hydrological models. In recent years, several post-processing techniques have been proposed. However, there is a lack of research on post-processing the real-time forecast of NWP models considering bias lead-time dependency for short- to medium-range forecasts. The main objective of this study is to use the total least squares (TLS) method and the lead-time dependent bias correction method—known as dynamic weighting (DW)—to post-process forecast real-time data. The findings show improved bias scores, a decrease in the normalized error and an improvement in the scatter index (SI). A comparison between the real-time precipitation and flood forecast relative bias error shows that applying the TLS and DW methods reduced the biases of real-time forecast precipitation. The results for real-time flood forecasts for the events of 2002, 2007 and 2011 show error reductions and accuracy improvements of 78.58%, 81.26% and 62.33%, respectively.

Music is everywhere in the world, and its applications in commerce are extremely versatile. Generally speaking, in order to create some music for background music, it is necessary to engage sound recordists and instrumental performers. However, the process is very time-consuming and costly. In this paper, a real-time emotion-based music accompaniment system is proposed to solve this issue. For different emotions, a fuzzy logic controller is designed to adjust the tempo of the music, and an adaptive partition evolutionary genetic algorithm is developed to create corresponding melodies. The chord progressions are generated via music theory, and the instrumentation is disposed by the conception of the probability. What is noteworthy is that all the processes can be output by Virtual Studio Technology in real time so that users can listen directly to the composing results from any emotions. From the experimental results, the proposed adaptive partition evolutionary genetic algorithm performs better than other optimal algorithms in such topics.

The article shows the results of research of the mutual influence of the melodic element and the harmonic side in Sergei Rachmaninoff”s musical compositions. The object of the study is presented by the linear functions of harmony, the elements of the harmonic vertical in the melodic line, and the processes of the melodic enrichment of the chords and the harmonic progressions. In a whole set of cases the chord or chord progression become the objects of melodic development through the saturation by means of non-chordal pitches and entire intervallic-chordal strata, through melodic development in separate textural lines. Simultaneously there occurs the saturation of the melody with all the richness of harmonic colors, which becomes possible because of the tight interaction between all the textural strata. Especially important for the issue of the correlation between melodicism and the harmonic processes in the musical texture in general is the problem of phonism. The conclusion is arrived at that all the levels of harmony demonstrate the activity of general tendencies: modal transformations of the harmonic interpretation of melodic units (the reharmonization of the tone, motive, syntagm and theme); the avoidance of traditional progressions; the overcoming of insularity and univocity of harmonic interpretation of the melodic unit; the prevalence of tension and procedurality; attention to the phonic side. The melodic and harmonic motion interacts with each other in the tightest way, and this not only does not impoverish the melody, but endows it with additional colorfulness and capaciousness, at the same time endowing the harmony with special intonational satiety. Keywords: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninoff’s melodicism, Rachmaninoff’s harmony, the interaction between the melodic element and harmony.

Print created the urge to innovate new modalities of musical knowledge production and dissemination in nineteenth-century Bengal. Publication of music books made the bifurcation between music theory and practice clearer, but only as a textual category. As the literature suggests, these were two categories for organizing musical knowledge, intimately entwined, where one produces the other and also doesn't exist without each other. The technology of ‘swaralipi’ (musical notation) used in the modern printed books materialized the project of disseminating music to the reader who could now ‘read’ the music from the book. For some book writers, music books were meant to be a replacement for the oral tutelage, published as ‘self-instructors’. But, on the contrary, the most prolific book-writers of the time used their books as the basis of oral tutelage in the music school. In the modern setting of the music school, the person of the ‘guru’ or ‘ustad’ was replaced by the formalized, systematic teaching of the ‘professors’ of music. Music books, as the medium of modern music pedagogy, thus changed not only the way students learned – making it possible to learn from the book with no instructor – but also the role of teachers, whose teaching was validated by the book. The music books came to function as the ‘modern shastras’ – to exercise regulatory authority over music practice, and how music is learned and taught. The ‘orality’ of music emerges as a liminal space in the gap between the writings on music and the writing of music. What emerges is an unlikely milieu where a new form of musical education is devised, the possibility of an education without a guru is conceived, and the schema of musical notation brings the entire process to life.

In a previous paper we reported that in pigs and dogs hindlimb compression causes large blood pressure increases which appear to be neurogenic. The present studies explore the utility of this non-invasive pressor model by determining the duration of the blood pressure increase, and by providing definitive evidence that the pressor response is neurogenic. All studies were done in chloralose-anaesthetized mongrel dogs. Prolonged experiments were performed in five experimental and four control dogs. Pressor responses could be elicited over a period of 9 h. The blood pressure increase during the 9th h was +30 +/- (s.e.m.) 6/32 +/- 5 mmHg (P less than 0.001 by paired t-test). The blood pressure in control animals did not change. Short-term hormonal and haemodynamic responses were analysed in 10 dogs. After 20 min hindlimb compression, mean blood pressure was elevated by 41.2 +/- 8.0 mmHg (P less than 0.001), plasma norepinephrine increased by 717 +/- 133 pg/ml (P less than 0.01) and plasma renin rose by 3.4 +/- 1.0 ng/ml/h (P less than 0.05). The pressure elevation was due to a 37% increase in total vascular resistance (P less than 0.01). Spinal anaesthesia at L4-L5 level in nine dogs caused a 70% reduction of blood pressure increase during lower body compression (P less than 0.001) and totally abolished plasma renin and norepinephrine increases. The infrarenal aorta and lower vena cava were occluded in eight dogs. After the ligation, there was a small rise in mean blood pressure (13.1 +/- 3.7 mmHg, P less than 0.01).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The first impression of the early historical recordings on the contemporary audience is often not ideal; the overall speed is relatively fast, the rhythm is relatively loose and free, and the strings are slippery. In recent years, a large number of research achievements have emerged at home and abroad that apply computer visualization analysis methods to music performance practice. It is feasible and necessary to gradually apply the visual audio parameter analysis method to music research and performance practice teaching. In this study, a prosody hierarchy prediction model based on the CNN (convective neural network) is proposed, and word vectors are added as semantic features. The DL (deep learning) method is applied to vocal music recognition, and a recognition method based on the DL framework is proposed by combining traditional audio signal processing methods. After introducing word vectors as features in the CNN model, the F-score value increased from 77% to 80%. The feasibility of the proposed vocal music recognition algorithm based on DL is verified by experiments.

Because music communicates extra-propositionally, philosophers often use musical concepts and metaphors to discuss implicit and/or affective knowledges. Music is a productive means to philosophically analyze affect, but only when these analyses are grounded in rigorous studies of actual musical works and practices. When we don’t ground our study of music in musical practices, works, and theories, “music” just becomes a mirror of whatever assumptions and biases we already have. I show how the overly-abstract treatment of music and sound in Jean-Luc Nancy’s Listening leads to significant philosophical and political problems. By following his musical metaphors all the way through, I show how his theory of listening naturalizes maleness/masculinity, and, like liberal multiculturalism, values “difference” only as a way to re-center whiteness and patriarchy. As an alternative, I use R&B/electropop singer Kelis’s 2010 single “Acapella” (sic) to develop an alternative account of music, affect, and the politics of difference.

Each controlled ovarian hyperstimulation(COH) protocol has its own unique mechanism and hormone pattern. The depot GnRHa protocol has a deeper down-regulation effect and favorable clinical pregnancy rates. The predictive model of the optimal follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) starting dose in the early follicular phase depot GnRH agonist (EFDGa) protocol has not been reported. Our study was made to explore predictive indicators for determining the optimal FSH starting dose in patients undergoing ovarian stimulation with the EFDGa protocol in assisted reproductive technology (ART), and to develop and validate a nomogram prediction model for the starting dose of FSH. This retrospective study included 2733 cycles who underwent fresh cycle transplantation at two large teaching hospitals in China from January to December 2022: center 1 (Reproductive Medicine Center of first affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University) provided the data for modelling (n = 938) and internal testing (n = 400), and center 2 (Reproductive Medicine Center of Jiangxi Maternal and Child Health Hospital) provided the data for external testing (n = 1109). Patient demographics, including age, anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) levels, baseline endocrine profile, and body mass index (BMI), along with information on ovulation stimulation, were collected. Univariate and multivariate linear regression models were used to identify factors influencing the FSH starting dose. A nomogram for the ideal FSH starting dose was developed based on these factors and validated internally and externally. Bland and Altman plots and paired t-tests were conducted to verify the concordance between groups. Multivariate analysis revealed that patient age, BMI, basal FSH, AMH, and antral follicle count (AFC) were indicators of FSH starting dose. The regression model for predicting FSH starting dose was determined as: Initial FSH dose = 62.957 + 1.780*AGE(years) +4.927*BMI (kg/m²) +1.417*bFSH (IU/ml) - 1.996*AFC - 48.174*AMH (ng/ml). Bland and Altman analysis showed good agreement in the internal validation (bias: 0.583, SD of bias: 33.07IU, 95%LOA: -69.7 to 68.5IU b). Furthermore, validating the model on external cohort (center 2) confirmed that nomogram prediction model is an accurate predictor of FSH starting dose ((bias: -1.437, SD of bias: 38.28IU; 95%LOA: -80.0 to 77.1IU). We established a model for effectively predicting the ideal FSH starting dose, with the nomogram model providing an intuitive representation of the data. The predictive model demonstrates practical utility, effectively initiating a proper ovarian response and preventing adverse ovarian reactions or the occurrence of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. As more IVF cycles are being generated in the future, this model will be valuable in clinicians using basic parameters to assess proper initial dose of FSH.

This paper attempts to establish a psychophysical basis for both stationary (tension in chord sonorities) and transitional (resolution in chord progressions) harmony. Harmony studies the phenomenon of combining notes in music to produce a pleasing effect greater than the sum of its parts. Being both aesthetic and mathematical in nature, it has baffled some of the brightest minds in physics and mathematics for centuries. With stationary harmony acoustics, traditional theories explaining consonances and dissonances that have been widely accepted are centred around two schools: rational relationships (commonly credited to Pythagoras) and Helmholtz's beating frequencies. The first is more of an attribution than a psychoacoustic explanation while electrophysiological (amongst other) discrepancies with the second still remain disputed. Transitional harmony, on the other hand, is a more complex problem that has remained largely elusive to acoustic science even today. In order to address both stationary and transitional harmony, we first propose the notion of interharmonic and subharmonic modulations to address the summation of adjacent and distant sinusoids in a chord. Based on this, earlier parts of this paper then bridges the two schools and shows how they stem from a single equation. Later parts of the paper focuses on subharmonic modulations to explain aspects of harmony that interharmonic modulations cannot. Introducing the concept of stationary and transitional subharmonic tensions, we show how it can explain perceptual concepts such as tension in stationary harmony and resolution in transitional harmony, by which we also address the five fundamental questions of psychoacoustic harmony such as why the pleasing effect of harmony is greater than that of the sum of its parts. Finally, strong correlations with traditional music theory and perception statistics affirm our theory with stationary and transitional harmony.

This paper deals with the automatic estimation of chord progression over time of an audio file. From the audio signal, a set of chroma vectors representing the pitch content of the file over time is extracted. From these observations the chord progression is then estimated using hidden Markov models. Several methods are proposed that allow taking into account music theory, perception of key and presence of higher harmonics of pitch notes. The proposed methods are then compared to existing algorithms. A large-scale evaluation on 110 hand-labeled songs from the Beatles allows concluding on improvement over the state of the art.

A philosopher who would say, as Jean Jacques Rousseau did, in explaining the state of French music and especially French opera, that it was completely lacking in expression, that it had an unnatural melodic line, that it relied on artificial conventions such 308 as harmony or counterpoint to compensate for its deficiencies, and that in general it was in a state of decadence or decline-such a philosopher could be considered a radical or even a revolutionary in his views on music. These views of Rousseau emerged during a prolonged series of writings and exchanges about music, in which some of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment took part. The philosophes were reacting to, or were involved in, three different events which occurred fairly close to one another, around the middle of the eighteenth century. The first was the breakthrough in music theory achieved by JeanPhilippe Rameau with his formulation of the principle of the fundamental bass-a single principle that helped to explain the structure and behavior of a multitude of chords and chord progressions used in eighteenth-century tonal practice.l The second was the prodigious undertaking of the Encyclopedie, with Diderot and d'Alembert as edi-