Timing Deviations Research Articles

Physical unclonable function using photonic spin Hall effect

This study presents a novel method leveraging surface wave-assisted photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE) to construct physical unclonable functions (PUFs). PUFs exploit inherent physical variations to generate unique Challenge–Response pairs, which are critical for hardware security and arise from manufacturing discrepancies, device characteristics, or timing deviations. We explore PSHE generation-based PUF design, expanding existing design possibilities. With recent applications in precise sensing and computing, PSHE offers promising performance metrics for our proposed PUFs, including an inter-Hamming distance of 47.50% , an average proportion of unique responses of 62.5% , and a Pearson correlation coefficient of − 0.198. The PUF token demonstrates robustness to simulated noise. Additionally, we evaluate security using a machine learning-based attack model, employing a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) regression model with a randomized search method. The average accuracy of successful attack prediction is 9.70% for the selected dataset. Our novel PUF token exhibits high non-linearity due to the PSHE effect, resilience to MLP-based attacks, and sensitivity to process variation.

A shared-private sentiment analysis approach based on cross-modal information interaction

To explore the heterogeneous sentiment information in each modal feature and improve the accuracy of sentiment analysis, this paper proposes a Multimodal Sentiment Analysis based on Text-Centric Sharing-Private Affective Semantics (TCSP). First, the Deep Canonical Time Wrapping (DCTW) algorithm is employed to effectively align the timing deviations of Audio and Picture modalities. Then, a cross-modal shared mask matrix is designed, and a mutual attention mechanism is introduced to compute the shared affective semantic features of Audio-picture-to-text. Following this, the private affective semantic features within Audio and Picture modalities are derived via the self-attention mechanism with LSTM. Finally, the Transformer Encoder structure is improved, achieving deep interaction and feature fusion of cross-modal emotional information, and conducting emotional analysis. Experiments are conducted on the IEMOCAP and MELD datasets. By comparing with current state-of-the-art models, the accuracy of the TCSP model reaches 82.02%, fully validating the effectiveness. In addition, the rationality of the design of each structure within the model is verified through ablation experiments.

Semiclassical Phase Analysis for a Trapped-Atom Sagnac Interferometer

A Sagnac atom interferometer can be constructed using a Bose–Einstein condensate trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic potential. Using the Bragg interaction with a set of laser beams, the atoms can be launched into circular orbits, with two counterpropagating interferometers allowing many sources of common-mode noise to be excluded. In a perfectly symmetric and harmonic potential, the interferometer output would depend only on the rotation rate of the apparatus. However, deviations from the ideal case can lead to spurious phase shifts. These phase shifts have been theoretically analyzed for anharmonic perturbations up to quartic in the confining potential, as well as angular deviations of the laser beams, timing deviations of the laser pulses, and motional excitations of the initial condensate. Analytical and numerical results show the leading effects of the perturbations to be second order. The scaling of the phase shifts with the number of orbits and the trap axial frequency ratio are determined. The results indicate that sensitive parameters should be controlled at the 10−5 level to accommodate a rotation sensing accuracy of 10−9 rad/s. The leading-order perturbations are suppressed in the case of perfect cylindrical symmetry, even in the presence of anharmonicity and other errors. An experimental measurement of one of the perturbation terms is presented.

Confabulations on Time: Relationship between Confabulations and Timing Deviations in Alzheimer's Disease.

We investigated the relationship between confabulations and the ability to process chronological characteristics of memories in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). We evaluated provoked confabulations, spontaneous confabulations, and time perception in 31AD patients. We evaluated provoked confabulations with questions probing general and personal knowledge. We evaluated spontaneous confabulations with a scale rated by nursing and medical staff. Regarding time perception, we invited the participants to perform a simple ongoing activity (i.e., deciding whether words were abstract or concrete), in order to provide a verbal estimation of the elapsed time intervals. We observed significant positive correlations between provoked/spontaneous confabulations and deviations in time estimation on the time perception task. These findings demonstrate a relationship between confabulations in AD and difficulties in processing the chronological characteristics of elapsed events.

Route-Based Transit Signal Priority Using Connected Vehicle Technology to Promote Bus Schedule Adherence

In this paper, we explore the use of enriched bus data enabled by the Connected Vehicle (CV) technologies and propose signal timing optimization models that aim to improve bus service reliabilities via Transit Signal Priorities (TSP). Specifically, a route-based TSP model (R-TSP) and its local version (L-TSP) are formulated. Timing and progression deviations are introduced as a simple and novel way to approximate the TSP impacts on passenger vehicle delays. An online adaptive TSP system is developed to leverage the continuous availability of CV data to monitor bus priority needs, trigger new formulations of the TSP models wwithith newly updated bus running data, and implement new signal timings in real-time. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate a variety of R-TSP and L-TSP model variants to understand their respective effectiveness to improve bus schedule adherence and their impacts to other traffic. Simulation study on a hypothetical corridor show that an R-TSP model variant with both timing and progression deviation defined can improve a 100% late bus fleet to 98.4% of on-time arrival with only 5.5% increase in passenger car delays. In comparison, none of the L-TSP models could produce comparable benefits for buses and caused too much delay on passenger vehicles. These simulation studies conclude that (1) connected vehicle technologies provide critical data to allow route-based TSP model to be formulated simply and solved continuously, and (2) granting bus priority at route level is much more beneficial than only providing bus priority on a signal by signal basis.

Formula omitted]-[formula omitted] fast timing at X-ray energies and investigation on various timing deviations

We report on systematic γ-γ fast-timing measurements by using four cylindrical 1.5′′×1.5′′ LaBr3(Ce) scintillator detectors which were installed in compact geometry around the focal plane of the Lohengrin fission-fragment separator at the Institut Laue–Langevin in Grenoble, France. Unconventional γ-ray sources as 185Os and 187W were produced by thermal-neutron activation to provide nearly prompt low-energy γ and K-X rays with average γ- and X-ray multiplicity equal to two. Due to practically no contribution of Compton background, highly precise results of time-walk measurements down to 40 keV are presented. Timing deviations related to different phenomena have been investigated, such as the geometry of an extended γ-ray source and the detector arrangement, long-term timing shifts and the timing contributions of the Compton background and the inter-detector Compton-scattering. The geometrical timing deviations are shown to be minimized using a multi-element detector array with a centrally symmetric arrangement relative to the center of the focal plane. Time-correction formula are proposed as analytical corrections for long-term time shifts, the time contributions of the Compton background and the position-dependent change of the time walk for cases where the calibration source cannot be placed at the center of the focal plane.

Microtiming Deviations and Swing Feel in Jazz

Jazz music that swings has the fascinating power to elicit a pleasant sensation of flow in listeners and the desire to synchronize body movements with the music. Whether microtiming deviations (MTDs), i.e. small timing deviations below the bar or phrase level, enhance the swing feel is highly debated in the current literature. Studies on other groove related genres did not find evidence for a positive impact of MTDs. The present study addresses jazz music and swing in particular, as there is some evidence that microtiming patterns are genre-specific. We recorded twelve piano jazz standards played by a professional pianist and manipulated the natural MTDs of the recordings in systematic ways by quantizing, expanding and inverting them. MTDs were defined with respect to a grid determined by the average swing ratio. The original and manipulated versions were presented in an online survey and evaluated by 160 listeners with various musical skill levels and backgrounds. Across pieces the quantized versions (without MTDs) were rated slightly higher and versions with expanded MTDs were rated lower with regard to swing than the original recordings. Unexpectedly, inversion had no impact on swing ratings except for two pieces. Our results suggest that naturally fluctuating MTDs are not an essential factor for the swing feel.

Intraday Disclosure Timing Deviations and Their Implications for Financial Reporting

A firm makes several financial reporting and disclosure decisions in a short period of time. Seemingly unrelated decisions may be correlated because of stability in management traits or the continuation of a firm’s accounting information system. We find that firms with greater deviations from their earnings announcement intraday timing patterns during a fiscal year tend to report larger magnitudes of discretionary accruals for that year, suggesting that intraday timing deviations are negatively associated with the quality of subsequent financial reporting. This finding is attributable to either managerial opportunism or ineffective accounting information systems. Investors do not seem to immediately and fully recognize that intraday timing deviations are a telltale sign for the quality of subsequent financial reporting. In the months after the signal becomes available, firms with inconsistent intraday timing have significantly lower stock returns than firms with consistent intraday timing.

Comparing theory, consensus, and perception to the acoustics of emotional speech

A new corpus of emotional speech was created to conduct theory and evidence-based comparisons to the published literature on the effects of a speaker’s intended emotion on the acoustics of their speech. Fifty-five adults were recorded speaking scripts with happy, angry, sad, and non-emotional prosodies. Variations in acoustic parameters such as pitch, timing, and formant deviations were investigated. Based on Scherer’s (1986) theoretical predictions about differences between discrete emotions, and Juslin and Laukka’s (2003) empirically-derived meta-analytic conclusions, we measured the degree to which the emotional speech data reflected predicted differences in the acoustic parameters of these prosodies. First, in relation to non-emotional prosody, angry and happy prosody were each 75% consistent with theory and sad prosody was not (25%). Second, in relation to non-emotional prosody, angry, happy, and sad prosodies were consistent with the empirical evidence base, 70%, 90%, and 50%, respectively. A subjective study was conducted wherein 30 adults rated the speech samples. Overall, adults discriminated the intended emotion of the speaker with 92% accuracy. Multiple regression analyses indicated that less than 25% of the significant acoustic patterns for each prosody accounted for variance in perceived emotional intensity. [Work supported by an award to Pamela Cole (NIMH 104547).]

Notating disfluencies and temporal deviations in music and arrhythmia

Expressive music performance and cardiac arrhythmia can be viewed as deformations of, or deviations from, an underlying pulse stream. I propose that the results of these pulse displacements can be treated as actual rhythms and represented accurately via a literal application of common music notation, which encodes proportional relations among duration categories, and figural and metric groupings. I apply the theory to recorded music containing extreme timing deviations and to electrocardiographic (ECG) recordings of cardiac arrhythmias. The rhythm transcriptions are based on rigorous computer-assisted quantitative measurements of onset timings and durations. The root-mean-square error ranges for the rhythm transcriptions were (19.1, 87.4) ms for the music samples and (24.8, 53.0) ms for the arrhythmia examples. For the performed music, the representation makes concrete the gap between the score and performance. For the arrhythmia ECGs, the transcriptions show rhythmic patterns evolving through time, progressions which are obscured by predominant individual beat morphology- and frequency-based representations. To make tangible the similarities between cardiac and music rhythms, I match the heart rhythms to music with similar rhythms to form assemblage pieces. The use of music notation leads to representations that enable formal comparisons and automated as well as human-readable analysis of the time structures of performed music and of arrhythmia ECG sequences beyond what is currently possible.

Symbol Timing Synchronization for Uplink Multi-User Transmission in IEEE 802.11ax WLAN

Along with the proliferation of mobile devices and applications, IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) has become one of the most popular Internet access technologies. This leads to dense deployment of WLAN devices, and the calls for better user experience in such high-density WLAN environments are mounting. To keep pace with this increasing demand for high efficiency WLAN, IEEE 802.11ax, whose key advance is adopting uplink multi-user transmission (UL MU), is currently entering the final phase of standardization. The UL MU in 802.11ax WLAN, however, has a difficulty that stems from the intrinsically distributed nature of WLAN. Specifically, concurrent frames from multiple stations are loosely synchronous in time, thus resulting in symbol timing misalignment which leads to poor decoding performance. In this paper, we dissect the performance degradation caused by symbol timing misalignment and examine the required symbol timing conditions in receiving UL MU. Based on the analysis, we present a new two-step synchronization method to accommodate asynchronously arriving UL MU. We develop an 802.11ax link-level simulator and comparatively evaluate the proposed synchronization method via extensive simulations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method successfully stabilizes UL MU data delivery even with large UL MU arrival timing deviations and the use of short cyclic prefix.

Impaired Maintenance of Interpersonal Synchronization in Musical Improvisations of Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious and complex mental disorder with a lifetime prevalence of 5.9%, characterized by pervasive difficulties with emotion regulation, impulse control, and instability in interpersonal relationships and self-image. Impairments in interpersonal functioning have always been a prominent characteristic of BPD, indicating a need for research to identify the specific interpersonal processes that are problematic for diagnosed individuals. Previous research has concentrated on self-report questionnaires, unidirectional tests, and experimental paradigms wherein the exchange of social signals between individuals was not the focus. We propose joint musical improvisation as an alternative method to investigate interpersonal processes. Using a novel, carefully planned, ABA′ accompaniment paradigm, and taking into account the possible influences of mood, psychotropic medication, general attachment, and musical sophistication, we recorded piano improvisations of 16 BPD patients and 12 matched healthy controls. We hypothesized that the insecure attachment system associated with BPD would be activated in the joint improvisation and manifest in measures of timing behavior. Results indicated that a logistic regression model, built on differences in timing deviations, predicted diagnosis with 82% success. More specifically, over the course of the improvisation B section (freer improvisation), controls' timing deviations decreased (temporal synchrony became more precise) whereas that of the patients with BPD did not, confirming our hypothesis. These findings are in accordance with previous research, where BPD is characterized by difficulties in attachment relationships such as maintaining strong attachment with others, but it is novel to find empirical evidence of such issues in joint musical improvisation. We suggest further longitudinal research within the field of music therapy, to study how recovery of these timing habits are related to attachment experiences and interpersonal functioning in general.

Attentional flexibility and memory capacity in conductors and pianists.

Individuals with high working memory (WM) capacity also tend to have better selective and divided attention. Although both capacities are essential for skilled performance in many areas, evidence for potential training and expertise effects is scarce. We investigated the attentional flexibility of musical conductors by comparing them to equivalently trained pianists. Conductors must focus their attention both on individual instruments and on larger sections of different instruments. We studied students and professionals in both domains to assess the contributions of age and training to these skills. Participants completed WM span tests for auditory and visual (notated) pitches and timing durations, as well as long-term memory tests. In three dichotic attention tasks, they were asked to detect small pitch and timing deviations from two melodic streams presented in baseline (separate streams), selective-attention (concentrating on only one stream), and divided-attention (concentrating on targets in both streams simultaneously) conditions. Conductors were better than pianists in detecting timing deviations in divided attention, and experts detected more targets than students. We found no group differences for WM capacity or for pitch deviations in the attention tasks, even after controlling for the older age of the experts. Musicians' WM spans across multimodal conditions were positively related to selective and divided attention. High-WM participants also had shorter reaction times in selective attention. Taken together, conductors showed higher attentional flexibility in successfully switching between different foci of attention.

Timing deviations in jazz performance: The relationships of selected musical variables on horizontal and vertical timing relations: A case study

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and relationships of selected musical variables on the horizontal (i.e., successive eighth note timing relationships) and vertical (i.e., the degree of ensemble synchronicity between separate parts) timing properties of jazz rhythm. A total of 949 eighth note samples from five improvised solos by saxophonist Chris Potter were analysed. Musical variables included metrical beat placement, melodic character, intervals, articulation, underlying harmony, and tempo. Results of the simultaneous multiple regression analyses revealed that intervals preceding and intervals succeeding the sample eighth notes had a significant effect on eighth note durations. Articulation had a significant effect on upbeat beat ratio. The relationships between the relative onset timing data of the saxophone, bass, and drums yielded significant results. There was a large, negative correlation between the relative timing onsets of saxophone and bass, a large negative correlation between saxophone and drums, and a moderate, negative correlation between bass and drums. Implications for the fields of music education, pedagogy, and cognitive psychology are discussed.

Long-range correlation properties in timing of skilled piano performance: the influence of auditory feedback and deep brain stimulation.

Unintentional timing deviations during musical performance can be conceived of as timing errors. However, recent research on humanizing computer-generated music has demonstrated that timing fluctuations that exhibit long-range temporal correlations (LRTC) are preferred by human listeners. This preference can be accounted for by the ubiquitous presence of LRTC in human tapping and rhythmic performances. Interestingly, the manifestation of LRTC in tapping behavior seems to be driven in a subject-specific manner by the LRTC properties of resting-state background cortical oscillatory activity. In this framework, the current study aimed to investigate whether propagation of timing deviations during the skilled, memorized piano performance (without metronome) of 17 professional pianists exhibits LRTC and whether the structure of the correlations is influenced by the presence or absence of auditory feedback. As an additional goal, we set out to investigate the influence of altering the dynamics along the cortico-basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical network via deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the LRTC properties of musical performance. Specifically, we investigated temporal deviations during the skilled piano performance of a non-professional pianist who was treated with subthalamic-deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) due to severe Parkinson's disease, with predominant tremor affecting his right upper extremity. In the tremor-affected right hand, the timing fluctuations of the performance exhibited random correlations with DBS OFF. By contrast, DBS restored long-range dependency in the temporal fluctuations, corresponding with the general motor improvement on DBS. Overall, the present investigations demonstrate the presence of LRTC in skilled piano performances, indicating that unintentional temporal deviations are correlated over a wide range of time scales. This phenomenon is stable after removal of the auditory feedback, but is altered by STN-DBS, which suggests that cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits play a role in the modulation of the serial correlations of timing fluctuations exhibited in skilled musical performance.

Spectral convergence in tapping and physiological fluctuations: coupling and independence of 1/f noise in the central and autonomic nervous systems.

When humans perform a response task or timing task repeatedly, fluctuations in measures of timing from one action to the next exhibit long-range correlations known as 1/f noise. The origins of 1/f noise in timing have been debated for over 20 years, with one common explanation serving as a default: humans are composed of physiological processes throughout the brain and body that operate over a wide range of timescales, and these processes combine to be expressed as a general source of 1/f noise. To test this explanation, the present study investigated the coupling vs. independence of 1/f noise in timing deviations, key-press durations, pupil dilations, and heartbeat intervals while tapping to an audiovisual metronome. All four dependent measures exhibited clear 1/f noise, regardless of whether tapping was synchronized or syncopated. 1/f spectra for timing deviations were found to match those for key-press durations on an individual basis, and 1/f spectra for pupil dilations matched those in heartbeat intervals. Results indicate a complex, multiscale relationship among 1/f noises arising from common sources, such as those arising from timing functions vs. those arising from autonomic nervous system (ANS) functions. Results also provide further evidence against the default hypothesis that 1/f noise in human timing is just the additive combination of processes throughout the brain and body. Our findings are better accommodated by theories of complexity matching that begin to formalize multiscale coordination as a foundation of human behavior.

Expressive Timbre and Timing in Rhythmic Performance: Analysis of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music

Because of its minimalist construction, Steve Reich’s Clapping Music provides an ideal crucible for an examination of the role of expressive timing and expressive timbre in musical performance. Seven recordings of Clapping Music are studied. The analysis begins by dissecting the seven performances into hundreds of segments that contain either single handclaps or double handclaps. These are then studied in many ways: the consistency with which performers are able to maintain the timbre of their claps, the height percept of a handclap and its meaning for such a percussive sound, the accuracy in time with which performers can maintain a steady pulse. When clapping together, the timbre of the clap pair is dependent not only on the individual timbres but also on the timing of the claps. It is possible to measure the accuracy in time with which performers synchronize the double claps. The section-by-section timing deviations correlate significantly with a simple measure of complexity: the more complex the pattern, the greater the timing deviations.

The Sense of Ensemble: a Machine Learning Approach to Expressive Performance Modelling in String Quartets

Computational approaches for modelling expressive music performance have produced systems that emulate music expression, but few steps have been taken in the domain of ensemble performance. In this paper, we propose a novel method for building computational models of ensemble expressive performance and show how this method can be applied for deriving new insights about collaboration among musicians. In order to address the problem of inter-dependence among musicians we propose the introduction of inter-voice contextual attributes. We evaluate the method on data extracted from multi-modal recordings of string quartet performances in two different conditions: solo and ensemble. We used machine-learning algorithms to produce computational models for predicting intensity, timing deviations, vibrato extent, and bowing speed of each note. As a result, the introduced inter-voice contextual attributes generally improved the prediction of the expressive parameters. Furthermore, results on attribute selection show that the models trained on ensemble recordings took more advantage of inter-voice contextual attributes than those trained on solo recordings.

Human-computer music performance: A brief history and future prospects

Computer accompaniment began in the eighties as a technology to synchronize computers to live musicians by sensing, following, and adapting to expressive musical performances. The technology has progressed from systems where performances were modeled as sequences of discrete symbols, i.e., pitches, to modern systems that use continuous probabilistic models. Although score following techniques have been a common focus, computer accompaniment research has addressed many other interesting topics, including the musical adjustment of tempo, the problem of following an ensemble of musicians, and making systems more robust to unexpected mistakes by performers. Looking toward the future, we find that score following is only one of many ways musicians use to synchronize. Score following is appropriate when scores exist and describe the performance accurately, and where timing deviations are to be followed rather than ignored. In many cases, however, especially in popular music forms, tempo is rather steady, and performers improvise many of their parts. Traditional computer accompaniment techniques do not solve these important music performance scenarios. The term Human-Computer Music Performance (HCMP) has been introduced to cover a broader spectrum of problems and technologies where humans and computers perform music together, adding interesting new problems and directions for future research.

An Exception to the Rule: Carry-Over Effects Do Not Accumulate in a Long-Distance Migratory Bird

Recent years have seen a growing consensus that events during one part of an animal's annual cycle can detrimentally affect its future fitness. Notably, migratory species have been shown to commonly display such carry-over effects, facing severe time constraints and physiological stresses that can influence events across seasons. However, to date, no study has examined a full annual cycle to determine when these carry-over effects arise and how long they persist within and across years. Understanding when carry-over effects are created and how they persist is critical to identifying those periods and geographic locations that constrain the annual cycle of a population and determining how selection is acting upon individuals throughout the entire year. Using three consecutive years of migration tracks and four consecutive years of breeding success data, we tested whether carry-over effects in the form of timing deviations during one migratory segment of the annual cycle represent fitness costs that persist or accumulate across the annual cycle for a long-distance migratory bird, the Hudsonian godwit, Limosa haemastica. We found that individual godwits could migrate progressively later than population mean over the course of an entire migration period, especially southbound migration, but that these deviations did not accumulate across the entire year and were not consistently detected among individuals across years. Furthermore, neither the accumulation of lateness during previous portions of the annual cycle nor arrival date at the breeding grounds resulted in individuals suffering reductions in their breeding success or survival. Given their extreme life history, such a lack of carry-over effects suggests that strong selection exists on godwits at each stage of the annual cycle and that carry-over effects may not be able to persist in such a system, but also emphasizes that high-quality stopover and wintering sites are critical to the maintenance of long-distance migratory populations.