261 research outputs found
The story of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet
No full textThesis (D. Mus. Arts)--University of Washington, 2000The Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet has been the wind quintet-in-residence at the University of Washington School of Music since 1968. Officially founded in 1962, when its members were on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, the group has had a long and stable history. Through their concerts, tours, and recordings, the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet has established an international reputation. Over the years, many distinguished composers have written works especially for the Soni Ventorum, thus expanding the repertoire of the wind quintet.This study traces the history of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet mainly through interviews with the quintet members themselves. This history includes antecedent quintets in which members of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet participated (namely, a student quintet at the Curtis Institute, The American Wind Ensemble of Vienna, and the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony Wind Quintet). It covers the founding of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet in 1962 at the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico through their tenure from 1968 through the present as the wind quintet-in-residence at the University of Washington in Seattle. It gives an account of the establishment of the Soni Ventorum's recording career, their approach to sound and ensemble, their many tours, participation in festivals and competitions, and personnel. The study details the Soni Ventorum's collaborations with colleagues at the University of Washington School of Music, especially the many composers who wrote pieces for the group. One chapter covers ensemble pieces that have been written for the members of the Son! Ventorum Wind Quintet, while another presents wind quintet and quartet arrangements that were prepared by the quintet members themselves. The final chapter provides biographies of the members of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet.The Introduction to the study is a brief history of wind quintets. The study concludes with detailed appendices cataloguing the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet's repertoire, concerts, residencies, tours and a complete discography.At the time of this writing, the author is aware of no other work detailing the history of an established wind quintet
PULSE-SMART: Pulse-Based Arrhythmia Discrimination Using a Novel Smartphone Application
No full textCo-author Apurv Soni is a medical student in the MD/PhD Program at UMass Medical School.BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common and dangerous rhythm abnormality. Smartphones are increasingly used for mobile health applications by older patients at risk for AF and may be useful for AF screening. OBJECTIVES: To test whether an enhanced smartphone app for AF detection can discriminate between sinus rhythm (SR), AF, premature atrial contractions (PACs), and premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). METHODS: We analyzed two hundred and nineteen 2-minute pulse recordings from 121 participants with AF (n = 98), PACs (n = 15), or PVCs (n = 15) using an iPhone 4S. We obtained pulsatile time series recordings in 91 participants after successful cardioversion to sinus rhythm from preexisting AF. The PULSE-SMART app conducted pulse analysis using 3 methods (Root Mean Square of Successive RR Differences; Shannon Entropy; Poincare plot). We examined the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive accuracy of the app for AF, PAC, and PVC discrimination from sinus rhythm using the 12-lead EKG or 3-lead telemetry as the gold standard. We also administered a brief usability questionnaire to a subgroup (n = 65) of app users. RESULTS: The smartphone-based app demonstrated excellent sensitivity (0.970), specificity (0.935), and accuracy (0.951) for real-time identification of an irregular pulse during AF. The app also showed good accuracy for PAC (0.955) and PVC discrimination (0.960). The vast majority of surveyed app users (83%) reported that it was "useful" and "not complex" to use. CONCLUSION: A smartphone app can accurately discriminate pulse recordings during AF from sinus rhythm, PACs, and PVCs.MD/Ph
Association of common mental disorder symptoms with health and healthcare factors among women in rural western India: results of a cross-sectional survey
No full textFirst author Apurv Soni is a medical student in the MD/PhD Program at UMass Medical School.OBJECTIVES: Information about common mental disorders (CMD) is needed to guide policy and clinical interventions in low-income and middle-income countries. This study's purpose was to characterise the association of CMD symptoms with 3 inter-related health and healthcare factors among women from rural western India based on a representative, cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Surveys were conducted in the waiting area of various outpatient clinics at a tertiary care hospital and in 16 rural villages in the Anand district of Gujarat, India. PARTICIPANTS: 700 Gujarati-speaking women between the ages of 18-45 years who resided in the Anand district of Gujarat, India, were recruited in a quasi-randomised manner. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES MEASURES: CMD symptoms, ascertained using WHO's Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20), were associated with self-reported (1) number of healthcare visits in the prior year; (2) health status and (3) portion of yearly income expended on healthcare. RESULTS: Data from 658 participants were used in this analysis; 19 surveys were excluded due to incompleteness, 18 surveys were excluded because the participants were visiting hospitalised patients and 5 surveys were classified as outliers. Overall, 155 (22·8%) participants screened positive for CMD symptoms (SRQ-20 score ≥8) with most (81.9%) not previously diagnosed despite contact with healthcare provider in the prior year. On adjusted analyses, screening positive for CMD symptoms was associated with worse category in self-reported health status (cumulative OR=9.39; 95% CI 5·97 to 14·76), higher portion of household income expended on healthcare (cumulative OR=2·31; 95% CL 1·52 to 3.52) and increased healthcare visits in the prior year (incidence rate ratio=1·24; 95% CI 1·07 to 1·44). CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of potential CMD among women in rural India that is unrecognised and associated with adverse health and financial indicators highlights the individual and public health burden of CMD.MD/Ph
Comparing Pre-trained Human Language Models: Is it Better with Human Context as Groups, Individual Traits, or Both?
No full textPre-trained language models consider the context of neighboring words and
documents but lack any author context of the human generating the text.
However, language depends on the author's states, traits, social, situational,
and environmental attributes, collectively referred to as human context (Soni
et al., 2024). Human-centered natural language processing requires
incorporating human context into language models. Currently, two methods exist:
pre-training with 1) group-wise attributes (e.g., over-45-year-olds) or 2)
individual traits. Group attributes are simple but coarse -- not all
45-year-olds write the same way -- while individual traits allow for more
personalized representations, but require more complex modeling and data. It is
unclear which approach benefits what tasks. We compare pre-training models with
human context via 1) group attributes, 2) individual users, and 3) a combined
approach on five user- and document-level tasks. Our results show that there is
no best approach, but that human-centered language modeling holds avenues for
different methods
A methodology for prediction accuracy assessment of intelligent traffic signal control algorithms with SPaT messages
No full textNew smart traffic signal control algorithms are capable of predicting the traffic signal state (red, green, or amber) changes, which can be provided to users to achieve more efficient traffic flow. However, these predictions pose an uncertain impact on the traffic flow and safety depending upon the quality of prediction. The information regarding the current state as well as the predicted residual time of state is communicated to other users in the form of Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) data. In this paper, the SPaT message data is analyzed from an on-road pilot of different traffic signal control algorithms on provincial roads in the Province of North Holland. For analysis, new methods and indicators for quantification of prediction accuracy and quality of algorithm are proposed. These indicators can either be used for correction of state change prediction in real-time or for comparative analysis of the performance of different traffic signal control algorithms. This paper presents three main findings. First, it is found that a half fixed algorithm has very high prediction accuracy up to 99% for optimized directions. Second, the prediction accuracy of Time to Amber predictions improved by around 30% with this algorithm. Third, the overall reliability of prediction always increased with the use of the algorithmAccepted Author ManuscriptTransport and Plannin
Autograph of Sonia Johnson in "The SisterWitch Conspiracy"
No full textThe title page and an autograph by the author, Sonia Johnson, in their work ""The SisterWitch Conspiracy"" with an inscription.To Carolyn, In appreciation of your courage and passion. Soni
Full Wavefield Migration of Vertical Seismic Profiling data
No full textUntil now, in most seismic imaging technologies, both surface and internal multiples are considered as noise. In today’s industrial practice, we see various methods for suppressing multiples before migration. This means that only a fraction of the recorded wavefield is used in imaging. In this thesis, we present a method termed full wavefield migration (FWM) that uses the multiple-reflections in the data to improve the illumination of the field in areas that cannot be reached by the primaries, to yield a better vertical resolution as well as to suppress migration artefacts caused by crosstalk of multiple-reflections. This thesis demonstrates the feasibility of full wavefield migration on a kind of borehole seismic known as vertical seismic profiling (VSP). We know that in today’s practice, images obtained using VSP data always suffer from poor illumination and small aperture effects. Therefore, we expect in VSP acquisition geometry, multiples can lead to significant improvement in illumination, both at the reservoir level as well as away from the well region. In this thesis, the advantage of using multiples in full wavefield migration has been demonstrated. We validated our algorithm on 2D synthetic and field VSP data. Full wavefield migration is posed as an inverse problem, where the parameters to be estimated are the subsurface reflectivities. We discuss an iterative forward modelling engine termed full wavefield modelling which is used in the inversion scheme. Full wavefield modelling allows us to compute the full wavefield (primaries and all multiples) in terms of estimated reflectivities. In the full wavefield modelling engine, we assume a scale-separation between the background migration velocity that governs only the one-way wavefield propagation and the reflectivity model that governs the two-way scattering. The modelling engine accounts for the non-linearity of the wavefield due to reflectivity, incorporating the transmission effects and multiple scattering at all depth levels. To solve the inverse problem, we have used iterative conjugate-gradient scheme, which is a local optimization method. We also presents a solution for imaging of blended source VSP data using FWM. The inversion-based imaging algorithm allows us to use any complex source wavefield without the need for a separate deblending (pre-processing) step. This thesis introduces the concepts of elastic full wavefield modelling and inversion. The elastic modelling of P and S waves is illustrated for a horizontally layered medium using a VSP geometry. The elastic imaging to estimate angle-dependent reflectivity parameters that incorporates mode-conversions in subsurface layers is an important area of future research. Nearly vertical structures such as salt-flanks pose a migration challenge for conventional FWM. We have also extended the FWM algorithm to incorporate turning-waves using horizontal one-way wavefield extrapolation. Using this extension, we illustrate that FWM can be used to image steep dips or near-vertical structures using the turning wavefield in VSP data. Alok Kumar Soni.Imaging PhysicsApplied Science
Weighted Bayesian Association Rule Mining Algorithm to Construct Bayesian Belief Network
No full textDiluted magnetic semiconductors of Zn-doped CeO2 nanoparticles synthesized by a chemical precursor method
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