Suchergebnisse

Current music technologies can assist in the process of learning to play a musical instrument and provide objective measures for evaluating the improvement of music students in concrete music tasks. In this paper, we investigated the effects of a sound quality visual feedback system (SQVFS) in violin learning. In particular, we studied the EEG activity of a group of participants with no previous violin playing experience while they learned to produce a stable sound (regarding pitch, dynamics, and timbre) in order to find motor learning biomarkers in a music task. Eighteen subjects with no prior experience in violin playing were divided into two groups: participants in the first group (experimental group, N = 9) practiced with instructional videos and offline feedback from the SQVFS provided in alternation with their performance, while participants in a second group (control group, N = 9) practiced with the instructional videos only. A third group of violin experts (players with more than 6 years of experience) performed the same task for comparative purposes (N = 7). All participants were asked to perform 20 trials (4 blocks of 5 trials) consisting of a violin bowing exercise while their EEG activity and their produced sound was recorded. Significant sound quality improvements along the session were found in all participants with the exception of participants in the expert group. In addition, participants in the experimental group showed increased interest in the learning process and significant improvement after the second block not present in the control group. A significant correlation between the levels of frontal gamma band power and the sound improvement along the task was found in both the experimental and control group. This result is consistent with the temporal binding model which associates gamma band power with the role of integrating (binding) information processed in distributed cortical areas. Task complexity demands more cognitive resources, more binding and thus, gamma band power enhancement, which may be reduced as the demanded task begins to be automated as it is likely to be the case in both beginners groups. ; This work was partly sponsored by Fundación Memora, the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN2013-48152-C2-2-R), and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project).

Comunicació presentada a: 1st ACM SIGCHI International Workshop on Multimodal Interaction for Education (MIE'17), celebrat en Glasgow (Regne Unit) el 13 de novembre de 2017. ; We present a study of the effects of feedback technologies on the learning process of novice violin students. Twenty-one subjects participated in our experiment, divided into two groups: Beginners (participants with no prior violin playing experience, N=14), and experts (participants with more than 6 years of violin playing experience, N=7). The beginners group was further divided into two: a group of beginners learning with Youtube videos (N=7), and a group of beginners with additional feedback related to the quality of their performance (N=7). Participants were asked to perform a violin exercise during 21 trials while their audio was recorded and analyzed. Three different audio descriptors were extracted from each audio in order to evaluate the quality of the performance: Dynamic stability, pitch stability and aperiodicity. Beginners showed a significant improvement during the session(i.e. by comparing the beginning and the end of the session)in the quality of the sound recorded, while experts maintained their results. However, only the beginner group with feedback showed significant improvement between the middle and late part of the session, while the group without feedback remained stable. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN 2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

This study investigated the role that impact investors could play in the water purification infrastructure sector. Impact investors are individuals and institutions that invest in companies, organisations and funds with the aim of generating social and environmental impact alongside financial return. These investors are increasingly interested in emerging markets such as South Africa. As scholars have raised concerns about investors and companies profiting from the provision of a basic human right, the views of 20 experts were also gauged on this topic. Semi-structured personal interviews were conducted with key role players in the South African impact investment value chain (mostly investors) and the water provision system. Interviewees saw an important role for private sector investment in water purification infrastructure given government's inability to meet the growing demand for potable water. Participants were, however, wary of private-public-partnerships and felt that investors and companies will only face a moral dilemma if they overcharge consumers for purified water. Impact investors should give careful consideration to domestic water users' ability to pay as well as their needs and expectations. The development of a blended financing model is proposed. Keywords: Impact investing; emerging market; water purification infrastructure; South Africa; basic human rights; ethical concerns

Desde 1996, el gobierno sudafricano ha emprendido un proyecto considerable para cumplir con el derecho proclamado de los ciudadanos a acceder a agua y saneamiento suficientes (Gobierno de Sudáfrica, 1996) a través de la gestión tradicional del agua y la gobernanza del agua. Sin embargo, la democracia aún no ha proporcionado mejoras significativas a los habitantes informales. Doornkop (Soweto) es un claro ejemplo de una comunidad que lucha por sus derechos de acceso a agua limpia y sistemas adecuados de saneamiento de aguas residuales. Más allá de la gestión tradicional del agua y la gobernanza social y ambiental del agua, ha surgido una visión ética de la gestión de las políticas del agua a través de los principios de "dignidad humana" e "igualdad humana" para proporcionar servicios básicos de agua. Se brindan igualdad de oportunidades para administrar el agua, analizando el impacto de los principios de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO) en las comunidades informales sudafricanas a través de la implementación de la gobernanza del agua humana. Los objetivos del estudio determinan si esos dos principios son relevantes para mejorar las condiciones de vida de la comunidad, así como para afectar positivamente los "Principios de gobernanza del agua" y los "Principios del agua". Con este objetivo, se estableció un estudio de caso en Doornkop (Soweto), en el que se evaluaron 416 habitantes informales entre un grupo reubicado, un grupo de tenencia y un grupo de ocupantes ilegales a través del método Smart PLS. Los resultados mostraron que los servicios de agua pueden mejorarse en gran medida a través de la gestión del agua humana, un modelo que puede aplicarse a otras áreas subdesarrolladas del mundo. ; Since 1996, the South African government has undertaken a considerable project to fulfil the proclaimed right of citizens to access sufficient water and sanitation (Gover nment of South Africa, 1996) through traditional water management and water governance. However, democracy has not yet provided significant improvements to informal dwellers. Doornkop (Soweto) is a clear example of a community fighting for its rights to access clean water and adequate wastewater sanitation systems. Beyond traditional water management and social and environmental water governance, an ethical view of managing water policies through principles of "human dignity" and "human equality" has arisen in order to provide basic water services. Equal opportunities to manage water are provided, analysing the impact of the principles of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) upon South African informal communities through the implementation of human water governance. The objectives of the study ascertain if those two principles are relevant to improve the community's living conditions as well as to positively affect the "Principles of wáter governance" and the "Water principles". With this aim, a case study was set up at Doornkop (Soweto), in which 416 informal dwellers among a relocated group, a tenure group and a squatter group were tested through the Smart PLS method. Results showed that water services can be highly improved through human water management, a model that can be applied to other underdeveloped areas in the world. ; • Comisión Europea. Proyecto IRSES-GA-2013-612686 • Junta de Extremadura y Fondos FEDER. Beca GR15126 • Universidad de Oviedo. Proyecto PAPI-17-PEMERG-22 ; peerReviewed

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la reforma económica implementada en Costa Rica en los últimos veinticinco años como resultado de la aplicación de los programas y políticas de ajuste estructural. Para tal efecto se analiza el debate que acompañó el proceso de aprobación e implementación de los mencionados programas, el discurso de los mismos, su desempeño y algunos de sus principales efectos sociales. Esta reforma económica representó un cambio importante en el estilo de desarrollo y en las funciones del estado social vigentes desde la década de los 1950s. De ahí que resulte de gran interés analizar cuál fue el nuevo enfoque de desarrollo que se implementó a partir de la década de los años ochenta y los resultados del mismo en materia de crecimiento económico y equidad social. Esta publicación pretende servir de insumo para promover la tarea académica de repensar la política de desarrollo que la sociedad costarricense debe definir dentro del nuevo contexto de la globalización. Abstract The objective of this article is to analyze the economic reform implemented in Costa Rica in the last twenty-five years as result of the application of the structural adjustment programs and policies. For such effect we analyze the debate that accompanied the process of approval and implementation of the mentioned programs, the speech of such, its performance and some of its main social effects. This economic reform represented an important change in the style of development and in the current functions of the social state from the decade of 1950s. Hence it results of big interest to analyze which was the new approach of development that was implemented from the decade of the eighties and the results of the same one on the subject of economic growth and social equity. This publication tries to serve as input to promote the academic task of rethinking the politics of development that the Costa Rican society must define inside the new context of the globalization.

Comunicació presentada a: 10th International Workshop on Machine Learning and Music (MML), celebrat a Barcelona (Espanya), el 6 d'octubre de 2017. ; Computational modelling of expressive music performance has been widely studied in the past. While previous work in this area has been mainly focused on classical piano music, there has been very little work on guitar music, and such work has focused on monophonic guitar playing. In this work, we present a machine learning approach to automatically generate expressive performances from non expressive music scores for polyphonic guitar. We treated guitar as an hexaphonic instrument, obtaining a polyphonic transcription of performed musical pieces. Features were extracted from the scores and performance actions were calculated from the deviations of the score and the performance. Machine learning techniques were used to train computational models to predict the aforementioned performance actions. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the models and the predicted pieces were performed. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and inno- vation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

Comunicació presentada a: 5th international Workshop on Sensor-based Activity Recognition and Interaction celebrat el 20 i 21 de setembre de 2018 a Berlin, Alemanya. ; Motion Capture (MOCAP) Systems have been used to analyze body motion and postures in biomedicine, sports, rehabilitation, and music. With the aim to compare the precision of low-cost devices for motion tracking (e.g. Myo) with the precision of MOCAP systems in the context of music performance, we recorded MOCAP and Myo data of a top professional violinist executing four fundamental bowing techniques (i.e. Détaché, Martelé, Spiccato and Ricochet). Using the recorded data we applied machine learning techniques to train models to classify the four bowing techniques. Despite intrinsic differences between the MOCAP and low-cost data, the Myo-based classifier resulted in slightly higher accuracy than the MOCAP-based classifier. This result shows that it is possible to develop music-gesture learning applications based on low-cost technology which can be used in home environments for self-learning practitioners. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN 2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

Repetitive practice is one of the most important factors in improving the performance of motor skills. This paper focuses on the analysis and classification of forearm gestures in the context of violin playing. We recorded five experts and three students performing eight traditional classical violin bow-strokes: martelé, staccato, detaché, ricochet, legato, trémolo, collé, and col legno. To record inertial motion information, we utilized the Myo sensor, which reports a multidimensional time-series signal. We synchronized inertial motion recordings with audio data to extract the spatiotemporal dynamics of each gesture. Applying state-of-the-art deep neural networks, we implemented and compared different architectures where convolutional neural networks (CNN) models demonstrated recognition rates of 97.147%, 3DMultiHeaded_CNN models showed rates of 98.553%, and rates of 99.234% were demonstrated by CNN_LSTM models. The collected data (quaternion of the bowing arm of a violinist) contained sufficient information to distinguish the bowing techniques studied, and deep learning methods were capable of learning the movement patterns that distinguish these techniques. Each of the learning algorithms investigated (CNN, 3DMultiHeaded_CNN, and CNN_LSTM) produced high classification accuracies which supported the feasibility of training classifiers. The resulting classifiers may provide the foundation of a digital assistant to enhance musicians' time spent practicing alone, providing real-time feedback on the accuracy and consistency of their musical gestures in performance. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN 2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm proposes that resources are mobilised by capabilities, and that both arise from 'dynamic' capabilities (DC). RBV research suggests that co-specialised DC's – those which are most valuable together (CDC's) - are particularly difficult to copy. This paper presents two corporate cases where two DC's–innovation and strategy renewal- were successfully co-specialised as a CDC and one where it was not. Based on collaborative research, we find that CDC's linking innovation and strategy renewal served Shell International and Nokia well, but not W.L. Gore. Our research covers a 10 year period and identifies two related themes: first, that companies investing in technological innovation can create strategy renewal opportunities in doing so, particularly by changing the order of selectors who determine if a technology has (or has not) this renewal potential. Secondly, we show that companies create several processes to sustain this CDC, to ensure the politics align with converting innovation into strategy renewal and having strategy renewal guide innovation priorities. Our research suggests that the power structures in W.L. Gore at the time of our study did not allow this CDC to work well. We conclude by summarising a set of factors that make the difference between success and failure with this CDC linking innovation and strategic renewal.

The production of good sound generation in the violin is a complex task that requires coordination and spatiotemporal control of bowing gestures. The use of motion-capture technologies to improve performance or reduce injury risks in the area of kinesiology is becoming widespread. The combination of motion accuracy and sound quality feedback has the potential of becoming an important aid in violin learning. In this study, we evaluate motion-capture and sound-quality analysis technologies developed inside the context of the TELMI, a technology-enhanced music learning project. We analyzed the sound and bow motion of 50 participants with no prior violin experience while learning to produce a stable sound in the violin. Participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group (N = 24) received real-time visual feedback both on kinematics and sound quality, while participants in the control group (N = 26) practiced without any type of external help. An additional third group of violin experts performed the same task for comparative purposes (N = 15). After the practice session, all groups were evaluated in a transfer phase without feedback. At the practice phase, the experimental group improved their bowing kinematics in comparison to the control group, but this was at the expense of impairing the sound quality of their performance. At the retention phase, the experimental group showed better results in sound quality, especially concerning control of sound dynamics. Besides, we found that the expert group improved the stability of their sound while using the technology. All in all, these results emphasize the importance of feedback technologies in learning complex tasks, such as musical instrument learning. ; This work was partly sponsored by Fundación Memora, the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN2013-48152-C2-2-R), and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project).

Auditory-guided vocal learning is a mechanism that operates both in humans and other animal species making us capable to imitate arbitrary sounds. Both auditory memories and auditory feedback interact to guide vocal learning. This may explain why it is easier for humans to imitate the pitch of a human voice than the pitch of a synthesized sound. In this study, we compared the effects of two different feedback modalities in learning pitch-matching abilities using a synthesized pure tone in 47 participants with no prior music experience. Participants were divided into three groups: a feedback group (N = 15) receiving real-time visual feedback of their pitch as well as knowledge of results; an equal-timbre group (N = 17) receiving additional auditory feedback of the target note with a similar timbre to the instrument being used (i.e., violin or human voice); and a control group (N = 15) practicing without any feedback or knowledge of results. An additional fourth group of violin experts performed the same task for comparative purposes (N = 15). All groups were posteriorly evaluated in a transfer phase. Both experimental groups (i.e., the feedback and equal-timbre groups) improved their intonation abilities with the synthesized sound after receiving feedback. Participants from the equal-timber group seemed as capable as the feedback group of producing the required pitch with the voice after listening to the human voice, but not with the violin (although they also showed improvement). In addition, only participants receiving real-time visual feedback learned and retained in the transfer phase the mapping between the synthesized pitch and its correspondence with the produced vocal or violin pitch. It is suggested that both the effect of an objective external reward, together with the experience of exploring the pitch space with their instrument in an explicit manner, helped participants to understand how to control their pitch production, strengthening their schemas, and favoring retention. ; This work was partly sponsored by the Musical AI project—(PID2019-111403GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project).

We guest editors acknowledge the financial support of the following funding sources: the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad project TIMuL [No. TIN2013–48152–C2–1–R]; [No. TIN2013–48152–C2–2–R, supported by UE FEDER funds]; the project Lrn2Cre8, which is funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme within the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission [FET grant number 610859]; the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [grant agreement number 688269].

"The world is increasingly turbulent and complex, awash with disruptions, tipping points and knock-on effects exemplified by the implosion of financial markets and economies around the globe." "This book is for business and organizational leaders who want and need to think through how best to deal with increasing turbulence, and with the complexity and uncertainty that come with it. The authors explain in clear language how future orientation and, specifically, modern scenario techniques help to address these conditions. They draw on examples from a wide variety of international settings and circumstances including large corporations, inter-governmental organizations, small firms and municipalities. Readers will be inspired to try out scenario approaches themselves to better address the turbulence that affects them and others with whom they work, live and do business."--Jacket.

Mejorar los usos del agua entre los pequeños agricultores en un área con escasez como la península de Yucatán en México es una tarea compleja. A pesar de los intentos del gobierno para hacer cumplir los reglamentos y la cuestión de la posibilidad de ajuste de precios, el mal uso de este recurso escaso, continúa. La mayoría de los agricultores son, en el mejor de los casos, motivados para aspirar a un nivel mínimo de cumplimiento, con muy pocos tratando de participar en mejores prácticas. Este artículo pretende hacer una propuesta sobre los pilotos idóneos para inspirar las mejores prácticas en un esfuerzo para mejorar el uso de la gestión del agua en la zona. Se propone que una virtud ética explícita, desde la acción de generar una actitud de respeto hacia el agua, fundada en tres principios clave (participación, hidrosolidaridad y participación activa). Esta es la mejor solución para Yucatán. Esta hipótesis es el resultado del desarrollo de una metodología basada en la regresión de los mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS), según SEM (Structural Equation Modeling), que podrían reproducirse en cualquier lugar para determinar qué medidas se adaptan mejor en un contexto determinado. Con un tamaño pequeño de la muestra, esta investigación comprueba qué se requiere para lograr las mejores prácticas con respecto a la gestión del agua en esa área en particular. ; Improving water practices among small farmers in a water scarce area like the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico is a complex task. Despite government attempts to enforce regulations and question the possibility of adjusting prices, the misuse of this scarce resource continues. Most farmers are, at best, motivated to aim for a minimum level of compliance, with very few striving to engage in best practices. This article seeks to make a proposal about the best drivers for inspiring best practices in an effort to improve the use of water management in the area. It proposes that a virtue ethics approach that explicitly focuses on the cultivation of an attitude of respect for water founded on three key principles (participation, hydrosolidarity and proactive engagement) is the best solution for Yucatan. This hypothesis is the result of developing a singular methodology based on Partial Least Squares (PLS), according to structural equation modeling (SEM), that could be replicated anywhere to ascertain which measures are best suited in a particular context. Using a small sample size, this research ascertains what is required to achieve best practices with regards to the management of water in that particular area. ; Proyecto Europeo IRSES-GA-ECODRY-2013-612686 y del Instituto Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA) ; peerReviewed