281 research outputs found

    hpDJ: An automated DJ with floorshow feedback

    No full text
    Many radio stations and nightclubs employ Disk-Jockeys (DJs) to provide a continuous uninterrupted stream or “mix” of dance music, built from a sequence of individual song-tracks. In the last decade, commercial pre-recorded compilation CDs of DJ mixes have become a growth market. DJs exercise skill in deciding an appropriate sequence of tracks and in mixing 'seamlessly' from one track to the next. Online access to large-scale archives of digitized music via automated music information retrieval systems offers users the possibility of discovering many songs they like, but the majority of consumers are unlikely to want to learn the DJ skills of sequencing and mixing. This paper describes hpDJ, an automatic method by which compilations of dance-music can be sequenced and seamlessly mixed by computer, with minimal user involvement. The user may specify a selection of tracks, and may give a qualitative indication of the type of mix required. The resultant mix can be presented as a continuous single digital audio file, whether for burning to CD, or for play-out from a personal playback device such as an iPod, or for play-out to rooms full of dancers in a nightclub. Results from an early version of this system have been tested on an audience of patrons in a London nightclub, with very favourable results. Subsequent to that experiment, we designed technologies which allow the hpDJ system to monitor the responses of crowds of dancers/listeners, so that hpDJ can dynamically react to those responses from the crowd. The initial intention was that hpDJ would monitor the crowd’s reaction to the song-track currently being played, and use that response to guide its selection of subsequent song-tracks tracks in the mix. In that version, it’s assumed that all the song-tracks existed in some archive or library of pre-recorded files. However, once reliable crowd-monitoring technology is available, it becomes possible to use the crowd-response data to dynamically “remix” existing song-tracks (i.e, alter the track in some way, tailoring it to the response of the crowd) and even to dynamically “compose” new song-tracks suited to that crowd. Thus, the music played by hpDJ to any particular crowd of listeners on any particular night becomes a direct function of that particular crowd’s particular responses on that particular night. On a different night, the same crowd of people might react in a different way, leading hpDJ to create different music. Thus, the music composed and played by hpDJ could be viewed as an “emergent” property of the dynamic interaction between the computer system and the crowd, and the crowd could then be viewed as having collectively collaborated on composing the music that was played on that night. This en masse collective composition raises some interesting legal issues regarding the ownership of the composition (i.e.: who, exactly, is the author of the work?), but revenue-generating businesses can nevertheless plausibly be built from such technologies

    Evidencing the "robot phase transition" in experimental human-algorithmic markets

    Full text link
    Johnson, Zhao, Hunsader, Meng, Ravindar, Carran, and Tivnan (2012) recently suggested the existence of a phase transition in the dynamics of financial markets in which there is free interaction between human traders and algorithmic trading systems ("robots"). Above a particular time-threshold, humans and robots trade with one another; below the threshold all transactions are robot-to-robot. We refer to this abrupt system transition as the "robot phase transition". Here, we conduct controlled experiments where human traders interact with 'robot' trading agents in minimal models of electronic financial markets to see if correlates of the two regimes suggested by Johnson et al. (2012) occur in such laboratory conditions. Our results indicate that when trading robots act on a super-human timescale, the market starts to fragment, with statistically lower human-robot interactions than we would expect from a fully mixed market. We tentatively conclude that this is the first empirical evidence for the robot phase transition occurring under controlled experimental conditions

    Beach development, sediment budget and coastal erosion at Holderness.

    Full text link
    Complex relationships exist among offshore conditions, beach sediment transport and morphology, and till cliff erosion. Modelled and measured sediment transport rates established for the Holderness coast are similar to those on comparable coasts elsewhere. The direction of sediment drift depends on wave approach, and determining sediment transport rates, cliff composition and cliff retreat rates allows a sediment budget to be prepared. The beach response predicted by the sediment budget was confirmed by field observations, with budget surpluses and deficits coinciding with full and depleted beach profiles respectively. The area of deficit in the north of the study area was associated with the reduced sheltering effect of Flamborough Head on sediment drift. At most profiles, especially those with a sediment deficit, high energy waves may remove the sand veneer completely, leaving the till platform exposed. These bare till patches which elsewhere have been called ords and have been regarded as unique, were thought, in the present study,to represent a normal beach response to limited sediment supply and prevailing offshore conditions. Beach evolution was also modelled formally, the range of beach profiles exhibited on the Holderness coast being grouped into a number of distinct types, and evolution among them described and predicted by a first-order Markov model. This can be refined to provide different models for "winter" and "summer". Different modal types occur at different locations, and certain types of transitions between classes can be associated with particular ranges of wave conditions. Beach Development, Sediment Budget and Coastal Erosion at Holderness Susan J. Mason. Till cliff retreat at Holderness is extremely variable, both spatially and temporally, being influenced by beach level, energy conditions, cliff moisture content and the actions of man. The sediment transport rates, cliff retreat data, sediment budget and beach behaviour model are all essential elements of a research programme currently being undertaken to find a cheap method of protecting this coast

    Performance of grain sorghum hybrids in Alabama, 1981

    No full text
    Title from cover. "February 1982.

    Performance of grain sorghum hybrids in Alabama, 1980

    No full text
    Title from cover. "January 1981.

    Performance of corn hybrids in Alabama, 1979

    No full text
    Title from cover. "January 1980.

    Small grain variety report 1980

    No full text
    Caption title. Microfilm. Stoughton, Mass. : Graphic Microfilm, Inc., 1977. 1 reel ; 35 mm. Shelved with: State agricultural papers

    Small grain variety report 1982

    No full text
    Caption title. Title on cover has date 1981. "August 1982." Microfilm. Stoughton, Mass. : Graphic Microfilm, Inc., 1977. 1 reel ; 35 mm. Shelved with: State agricultural papers

    Performance of corn hybrids in Alabama, 1980

    No full text
    Title from cover. "January 1981.

    Performance of grain sorghum hybrids in Alabama, 1978

    No full text
    Title from cover. "February 1979.
    corecore