Graphic Scores Research Articles

Worldwide Testing of the eFACE Facial Nerve Clinician-Graded Scale.

The electronic, clinician-graded facial function scale (eFACE) is a potentially useful tool for assessing facial function. Beneficial features include its digital nature, use of visual analogue scales, and provision of graphic outputs and scores. The authors introduced the instrument to experienced facial nerve clinicians for feedback, and examined the effect of viewing a video tutorial on score agreement. Videos of 30 patients with facial palsy were embedded in an Apple eFACE application. Facial nerve clinicians were invited to perform eFACE video rating and tutorial observation. Participants downloaded the application, viewed the clips, and applied the scoring. They then viewed the tutorial and rescored the clips. Analysis of mean, standard deviation, and confidence interval were performed. Values were compared before and after tutorial viewing, and against scores obtained by an experienced eFACE user. eFACE feedback was positive; participants reported eagerness to apply the instrument in clinical practice. Standard deviation decreased significantly in only two of the 16 categories after tutorial viewing. Subscores for static, dynamic, and synkinesis all demonstrated stable standard deviations, suggesting that the instrument is intuitive. Participants achieved posttutorial scores closer to the experienced eFACE user in 14 of 16 scores, although only a single score, nasolabial fold orientation with smiling, achieved statistically significant improvement. The eFACE may be a suitable, cross-platform, digital instrument for facial function assessment, and was well received by facial nerve experts. Tutorial viewing does not appear to be necessary to achieve agreement, although it does mildly improve agreement between occasional and frequent eFACE users.

Kōan-like ambiguities in John Cage's Electronic Music for Piano: a novel application of formal concept analysis

In this article I present a novel application of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to the problem of interpreting and analysing the non-standard graphical music score Electronic Music for Piano (1965) by American composer John Cage. The avant-garde nature of Cage's score, presented on a single page as a series of anecdotal texts written in natural language, resists traditional approaches of music theory analysis. I utilise FCA for its suitability for delving into the work's taxonomy as well as its ability to visualise and analyse semiotic patterns and relationships within the natural language text fragments of the work. In this regard, FCA is also used as a means in which to frame what many writers have previously identified as kōan-like qualities in many of Cage's works. A kōan is generally understood as a type of unsolvable Zen Buddhist riddle filled with contradictions and ambiguities. I subsequently theorise Electronic Music for Piano as a type of musical kōan, and by applying FCA, demonstrate how various derived formal concepts, object extensions, and subset groupings of the work support this theory.

The Ideal Surgical Anaesthesia: A Comparison of Pain Experience in Subjects Undergoing Cataract Surgery Under Topical Versus Subtenon Anaesthesia

Background: Recent advancements in cataract surgery and local anaesthesia administration has led to the majority of cataract surgeries been performed under local anaesthesia. This has further intensified the search for the ideal anaesthesia. The use of topical anaesthetic agents in cataract surgeries has brought us closer to finding that ideal anaesthesia. Objective: The objective of this study is to determine the viability of topical anaesthesia as a comparable mode of anaesthesia to subtenon anaesthesia in cataract surgery. Methods: This is a randomized double-blinded placebocontrolled clinical trial. 118 subjects undergoing small incision cataract surgery were allocated to either a topical anaesthesia group (topical anaesthesia with placebo subtenon’s injection of balanced salt solution, n=40) or subtenon’s group (sub-tenon’s anaesthesia with placebo topical balanced salt solution, n=78). Pain experienced during and after the operation was assessed using the numerical rating scale, aided with a visual analogue graphic pain score chart. Results: There was no significant difference in mean pain score between the two groups during anaesthesia administration (P=0.48), during cataract surgery (P=0.37), immediately after surgery (P=0.77) and 30 minutes after surgery (P=0.17). Conclusion: Topical anaesthesia is comparable to subtenon’s anaesthesia in patients undergoing cataract surgery.

The Process of Self-Expression in “Graphic Score Making” in a Music Appreciation Class :

The Process of Self-Expression in “Graphic Score Making” in a Music Appreciation Class :

Flaws in the Body and How We Work with Them: An Interview with Composer Alexander Schubert

This interview with Alexander Schubert, one of the most significant of the younger generation of German composers, examines his work as an innovator of new types of gesture-technology relationships. We begin by discussing his background, education and influences, and in particular his relationship to the peers discussed above. We then examine some specific questions about his use of video (both live and prerecorded) and the use of choreographed gestures. Finally, we discuss four key works which show three very different approaches to his use of gesture. Your Fox's a Dirty Gold for solo performer with voice, motion sensors, electric guitar, and live-electronics (2011) features a solo performer, singing and seeming to play electric guitar, although all the sounds are produced by the movement of sensors, rather than the instrument. Laplace Tiger for drum-kit, arm-sensor, live electronics, and live video (2009) shows the use of live video triggered by the drummer's gestures, amplifying while also transforming the audience's perceptions of these movements and the resultant sounds. Sensate Focus for electric guitar, bass clarinet, violin, percussion, live-electronics and animated light (2014) uses lighting to create the illusion that the ensemble on stage is a digital projection. And HELLO for any number of instruments, live-electronics and video (2014) uses a video of himself performing everyday tasks in his home, as both the graphic score and the ‘conductor’ for the ensemble.

Through the Silver Screen: The Collaborative Creation of Works for Piano and Video

This article examines my collaboration with British composer, Adam de la Cour, on his work for piano, video and electronics, Transplant the Movie! (2016). I use auto-ethnographic techniques to examine our collaborative relationship as the work was conceived, created and prepared for performance. Transplant the Movie! (2016) takes as its inspiration the subgenre of early horror films that focus on pianists receiving hand transplants from the corpses of deceased criminals, including The Hands of Orlac (1924), Mad Love (1935), The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), and Hands of a Stranger (1962). I worked with Adam de la Cour to film re-enactments of selected scenes, imitating the style of the original films which he then intercut to form the film used in this work. The pianist, at first plays the role of a silent movie pianist accompanying the film, before finding himself transported into it, imitating the action on screen in a process that is both horrific and comedic. The score for the pianist is itself a collage of excerpts from across the canonical piano repertoire creating another layer of intertextual complexity that both enhances and resists the narrative of cut-up horror films on screen, before this relationship unravels in a wild climax where the film becomes a hallucinatory graphic score. In a collaboration where the pianist is a co-creator, a character on screen, and the performer of the finished work, the roles of all the creative participants must remain constantly fluid throughout the process, with the cinematic and musical elements improvised, negotiated and discussed in tandem over many stages. The case-study demonstrates how working across art forms both facilitates and necessitates the need for a unique approach to collaboration, where both composer and performer play a variety of creative roles in the composition and filmmaking processes.

Integration of 2D and TLS Data Using GIS to Create a Database for the Paphos Agora Project

Excavations in the Nea Paphos Hellenistic-Roman agora have been conducted by the Chair of Classical Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University of Krakow since 2011 under the direction of Professor E. Papuci-Władyka. The main goal of the excavation is to fully uncover the Agora and to reconstruct the ways in which this public space was used. One of the methodological goals set for the research was the creation of a state-of-the-art database (work on which began in 2013) that could import and adapt data obtained from modern equipment. Of equal importance was the implementation of a 3D-format within the database (this had been under discussion for over a decade) and the enabling of GIS software data integration. Faro Focus laser scanner data was chosen to form the graphical core as it fulfilled the most important visual documentation criteria for the Paphos Agora Project database. This article presents the main premises on which the new Nea Paphos Hellenistic-Roman Agora Project database is based (on the integration of 3D and 2D data from 2011–2014) and the different stages of its creation, which made use of the latest methods of developing such tools for the purposes of archaeological excavations.

Institutional collecting versus ‘live art’

This paper focuses on the relation between the acquisition activity of the Moravian Gallery in Brno (officially founded in 1961) and the then current artistic production in the region (especially the program of the Brno House of Arts). While the collection of modern art — that originated before the official foundation of the gallery — was built in correlation with the current interwar exhibition activities of various art associations, in the 1960s the Gallery’s acquisition policy becomes selective. The reasons may be found in the diversification of modernity — personal preferences — political pressures — censorship — and/or the inability of the institution to deal with dematerialized art and newly emerging art forms. The text examines the position of the progressive trends of neo-avant-garde and conceptual art within the professional (institutionalized) art scene through specific examples of work, from the perspective of a significant Czech institution. Specifically, the essay deals with the works of art by Milan Grygar, Miroslav Sonny Halas and an informal group called ‘The Brno Bohemians.’ It also contains a brief excursus on a possible analogy between the authors of graphic scores in the Sixties and Seventies and the visuality of records and scores of Leoš Janáček, one of the most significant composers of the avant-garde.

NMRe: a web server for NMR protein structure refinement with high-quality structure validation scores.

Protein structure refinement is a necessary step for the study of protein function. In particular, some nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) structures are of lower quality than X-ray crystallographic structures. Here, we present NMRe, a web-based server for NMR structure refinement. The previously developed knowledge-based energy function STAP (Statistical Torsion Angle Potential) was used for NMRe refinement. With STAP, NMRe provides two refinement protocols using two types of distance restraints. If a user provides NOE (Nuclear Overhauser Effect) data, the refinement is performed with the NOE distance restraints as a conventional NMR structure refinement. Additionally, NMRe generates NOE-like distance restraints based on the inter-hydrogen distances derived from the input structure. The efficiency of NMRe refinement was validated on 20 NMR structures. Most of the quality assessment scores of the refined NMR structures were better than those of the original structures. The refinement results are provided as a three-dimensional structure view, a secondary structure scheme, and numerical and graphical structure validation scores. NMRe is available at http://psb.kobic.re.kr/nmre/.

Engagement and skill development through an innovative classroom music program

Rates of music participation are low in developed nations. This may be attributed in part to the failure of school music to engage children sufficiently to motivate them to continue learning and participating in music. We tested the Harmonix program of classroom music education, which is currently being designed to maximize engagement in music learning. The program employs a set of new, harmonically tuned percussion instruments, using cyclical, self-cuing patterns, and hierarchical rhythmic structures that match complexity with ability. Graphical scores reduce cognitive load, and assist students to compose music from the first class. Cooperative learning activities consolidate learning and further stimulate engagement through personal and group expression. Using a combination of timely self-report and objective measurement, we found that student learning and skill acquisition increased over the six-week program while high engagement was maintained. Engagement measures also increased within each session. Over the six weeks of the program no significant changes were observed in attitudes toward music.

The Neck Disability Index-Russian Language Version (NDI-RU): A Study of Validity and Reliability.

Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric testing. To perform a validated Russian translation and then to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Russian language version of the Neck Disability Index (NDI-RU). Neck pain is highly prevalent and can greatly affect daily activity. The Neck Disability Index (NDI) is the most frequently used scale for self-rating of disability due to neck pain. Its translated versions are applied in many countries. However, the Russian language version of the NDI has not been developed yet. Cross-cultural adaptation of the NDI-RU was performed according to established guidelines. Then, the NDI-RU was evaluated for content validity, concurrent criterion validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure, and minimum detectable change. Two hundred thirty-two patients took part in the study in total: 109 in validity (39.5 ± 10 yr), 123 in reliability (38.4 ± 11 yr; 80 in the test-retest phase). A culturally valid translation was achieved. NDI-RU total scores were distributed normally. Floor/ceiling effects were absent. Good values of Cronbach α were obtained for each item (from 0.80 to 0.84) and for the total NDI-RU (0.83). A 2-factor solution was found for the NDI-RU. The average interitem correlation coefficient was 0.53. Intraclass correlation coefficients for test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from 0.65 to 0.92 for different items and 0.91 for the total NDI-RU. Moderate correlation (Spearman rs = 0.62; P < 0.05) was found between the NDI-RU total score and graphic rating scalepain score. Completion of the NDI-RU takes 3.6 ± 1 minutes. The development of a Russian language version of the Neck Disability Index resulted in a valid, reliable instrument that can be used both in clinical practice and scientific investigations. 1.

Tunnel Field-Effect Transistors: Prospects and Challenges

The tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) is considered a future transistor option due to its steep-slope prospects and the resulting advantages in operating at low supply voltage (V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DD</sub> ). In this paper, using atomistic quantum models that are in agreement with experimental TFET devices, we are reviewing TFETs prospects at L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> = 13 nm node together with the main challenges and benefits of its implementation. Significant power savings at iso-performance to CMOS are shown for GaSb/InAs TFET, but only for performance targets which use lower than conventional V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DD</sub> . Also, P-TFET current-drive is between 1× to 0.5× of N-TFET, depending on choice of I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OFF</sub> and V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DD</sub> . There are many challenges to realizing TFETs in products, such as the requirement of high quality III-V materials and oxides with very thin body dimensions, and the TFET's layout density and reliability issues due to its source/drain asymmetry. Yet, extremely parallelizable products, such as graphics cores, show the prospect of longer battery life at a cost of some chip area.

Assessing pain intensity following spinal cord injury: should rating scales measure 'overall' or 'maximal' values?

Rating scales (RSs) are important for the assessment of pain intensity (PI) following a spinal cord injury (SCI). Using a Graphic Rating Scale, this pilot study measured an 'overall' level of PI repeated about every 2 h over 1 day and compared it with maximal PI scores reported previously. Patients were categorized into severity groups according to the overall Graphic Rating Scale score at initial assessment (T0). Eight men and six women (mean age 53.1; range 28-75) participated. Comparison of the overall PI scores and their changes over time with the maximal PI scores reported previously showed loss of patients in the severe group and less pronounced PI changes over time. Rating scales used in spinal cord injury services should measure maximal pain experienced 'right now' to eliminate potential averaging out of pain over time, which might allow physicians to assist patients in understanding their pain and begin their adjustment.

SEX DIFFERENCES IN SCORES on THE DRAW-A-PERSON TEST ACROSS CHILDHOOD: DO THEY RELATE TO GRAPHIC FLUENCY?

Girls are said to outperform boys in the human figure drawing, but some disagreement exists among studies regarding such sex differences, and the reasons for these sex differences are unclear. The study examined how sex, age, and graphic fluency affect scores at the human figure drawing in large sample of children aged five to 12 years. To that end, the Draw-a-Person Test was administered to 336 boys and girls from kindergarten to Grade 6, using Goodenough's scoring method. Graphic fluency was measured using Torrance's Parallel Lines Test. Results showed a sex by age interaction on scores at the Draw-a-Person test, with girls outperforming boys at Grades 3 and 6. Split-sample regression analyses indicated that for boys both age and graphic fluency were relevant predictors for scores on the Draw-a-Person test; by contrast, for girls age, but not fluency, predicted the drawing scores. It was concluded that graphic fluency differently affected boys' and girls' scores.

Photography: My New Score

The aim of this research is to demonstrate how photography is used as a creative tool in my compositional process. Purpose-built pictures are created solely with the goal of acting as musical scores, called graphic scores, from which performers improvise. This paves a way for me, the composer, to communicate my compositional ideas to the performers, resulting in new soundscapes and original artworks, without the restrictive barriers placed upon me, the composer, by convention. As an artist, the objective is to capture unique moments in time, where images are taken naturally or by manipulating the camera in a variety of predetermined ways. This idea could work with any picture, but for me, it is the innate musical language that I have developed over the years of my conventional musical training, that leads me to the precise construction of these new compositions. Initially, I was inspired by the writings of John ...

Jozi Rhythmanalogues: Measures of sense and nonsense in Johannesburg’s automatic writing

Abstract The city of Johannesburg pulsates with rhythms that are driven by some of its most fundamental characteristics: pressured economic activity, the mingling and movement of bodies, commuting, and a history of race and class segregation. The collaborative Jozi Rhythmanalogues project attempts to make sense of these rhythms by employing sensory experience as a process of explorative thought. In the course of this project, public spaces are documented over long periods through time-lapse films, which are analysed to reveal patterns of movement. The resulting graphs, representing a kind of ‘automatic writing’ of the city’s rhythms, are interpreted as a graphic score by musical ensembles, producing music, sound and noise. This article reflects on the explorations of spaces, methods and concerns that has led to the development of the Jozi Rhythmanalogues project’s different manifestations, and looks at the ways in which two very different ensembles have interpreted the graphic score. The key questions that emerge relate to the nature of the information that is captured or ‘written’ in the graphs, and what it means to attempt, over and over, to make sense of this information. The idea of ‘sensory thought’ is critical here, as the project in its entirety is concerned with the work of the senses as a thinking process. This phenomenological angle is complicated by the flirtation with abstract data in the measurements that comprise the production of the graphs, revealing a question of movement between poetic and analytical modes of apprehension.

Do Desenho e do Som: Harmonising screen scores and listening

Do Desenho e do Som is a software application that creates graphical screen scores in real time. Fascinated by the theoretical discussions concerning improvisation, composition and real-time composition, the author endeavours to conceive an interactive environment to induce controlled improvisation contexts, using real-time scores. Do Desenho e do Som makes use of real-time screen scores to facilitate the communication of formalised musical ideas, which due to their ambiguous graphical nature create an interesting interaction between a composer, an assistant and performers. It also grants a real-time control over form as the notation, and consequently the music, unfolds at runtime. With a focus on the underlying importance of listening, the author based this article on his own experience designing the Do Desenho e do Som software and using it for composition.

Circular Graphic Scores: Between Time and Space

Located between artistic categories, graphic scores use elements of visual language to represent musical sounds. Since the origin of graphical notation in the middle of the twentieth century, circular graphic scores play an important role in composers’ creations. Despite this fact, there is a lack of specific studies on the subject. This article aims to provide some clues and conceptual elements for understanding “how the circle sounds”. Through a comparative study between the circular shape and its musical performance in some of the most relevant circular works of last decades, it has been found that frequently circular notation corresponds to musical structures of cyclic and repetitive nature. Moreover, circular scores allow incorporating elements of openness in interpretation, such as the duration of the work, the choice of reading direction or starting point. Circular scores advantage the analysis of the musical structure of the piece and provide flexibility to interpretation. In addition, they show that spatiality is a condition of music, as well as temporality.

Accelerated Combinatorial Optimization using Graphics Processing Units and C++ AMP

In the course of less than a decade, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have evolved from narrowly scoped application specific accelerators to general-purpose parallel machines capable of accommodating an ever-growing set of algorithms. At the same time, programming GPUs appears to have become trapped around an attractor characterised by ad-hoc practices, non-portable implementations and inexact, uninformative performance reporting. The purpose of this paper is two-fold, on one hand pursuing an in-depth look at GPU hardware and its characteristics, and on the other demonstrating that portable, generic, mathematically grounded programming of these machines is possible and desirable. An agent-based meta-heuristic, the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS), provides the context. The major contributions brought about by this article are the following: (1) an optimal, portable, generic-algorithm based MMAS implementation is derived; (2) an in-depth analysis of AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) GPU and the C++ AMP programming model is supplied; (3) a more robust approach to performance reporting is presented; (4) novel techniques for raising the abstraction level without sacrificing performance are employed. This represents the first implementation of an algorithm from the Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) family using C++ AMP, whilst at the same time being one of the first uses of the latter programming environment.

OPENING OFFER OR CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION? ON THE PRESCRIPTIVE FUNCTION OF NOTATION IN MUSIC TODAY

AbstractThis article explores some of the diverse forms that musical notation has assumed in the early twenty-first century and discusses its use along a broad spectrum of creative intention, which includes visual representation of sounds, verbal lists of instructions or provocations, and much else. Drawing upon his own experience as a composer, and on studies of the work of composers both older and younger (Stockhausen, Lucier, Wolff; Molitor, Lely), the author examines the changing meanings of notes, staves and clefs, and the possibilities of graphic scores, text scores, and hybrid forms of notation.