The growing concerns over desertification have spurred research into technologies aimed at acquiring water from non-traditional sources such as dew, fog, and water vapor. Some of the most promising developments have focused on improving designs to collect water from fog. However, the absence of a shared framework to predict, measure and compare the water collection efficiencies of new prototypes is becoming a major obstacle to progress in the field. We address this problem by providing a general theory to design efficient fog collectors as well as a concrete experimental protocol to supply our theory with the parameters necessary to quantify the effective water collection efficiency. We show in particular that multi-layer collectors are required for high fog collection efficiency and that all efficient designs are found within a narrow range of mesh porosity. We support our conclusions with measurements on simple multi-layer harp collectors.

A new approach is proposed that closely synthesizes tones of plucked string instruments by using a class of physical modeling recurrent networks. The strategies employed consist of a fast training algorithm and a multistage training procedure that are able to obtain the synthesis parameters for a specific instrument automatically. The training vector can be recorded tones of most target plucked instruments with ordinary microphones. The proposed approach delivers encouraging results when it is applied to different types of plucked string instruments such as steel-string guitar, nylon-string guitar, harp, Chin, Yueh-chin, and Pipa. The synthesized tones sound very close to the originals produced by their acoustic counterparts. In addition, the paper presents an embedded technique that can produce special effects such as vibrato and portamento that are vital to the playing of plucked-string instruments. The computation required in the resynthesis processing is also reasonable.

This is an attempt to describe and explain so-called timbre-based music as a special system of musicking, communication, and psychological and social usage, which along with its corresponding beliefs constitutes a viable alternative to "frequency-based" music. Unfortunately, the current scientific research into music has been skewed almost entirely in favor of the frequency-based music prevalent in the West. Subsequently, whenever samples of timbre-based music attract the attention of Western researchers, these are usually interpreted as "defective" implementations of frequency-based music. The presence of discrete pitch is often regarded as the structural criterion that distinguishes music from non-music. We would like to present evidence to the contrary-in support of the existence of indigenous music systems based on the discretization and patterning of aspects of timbre, rather than pitch. This evidence comes mainly from extensive ethnographic research systematically conducted in eastern European and Asian parts of Russia from the 1890s. It involved the efforts of thousands of specialists and was coordinated by dozens of research institutions, and it has included not just ethnomusicology but linguistics, philology, organology, archaeology, anthropology, geography, and religious, and social studies. Much of the data has not been translated into Western languages. Although some Soviet-era publications were tainted by Marxist ideology, many researchers strove to provide accurate information (despite at times having been prosecuted for their work), and post-1990 research undertook a substantial revision of ideologically compromised concepts. Timbre-based tonal organization (TO) differs from that based on frequency in its personal orientation: musicking here occurs primarily for oneself and/or for close relatives/friends. Collective music-making is rare and exceptional. The foundation of timbre-based music seems to have vocal roots and rests on "personal song"-a system of personal identification through individualized patterns of rhythm, timbre, and pitch contour, utilized like a "human voice"-whose sound enables the recognition of a particular individual. The instrumental counterpart of the personalized singing tradition is the jaw harp tradition. The jaw harp is the principal musical instrument for at least 21 ethnicities in Russia, who occupy over half the territory of the country. The evolution of its TO forms the backbone for the development of timbre-based music art. Here, we provide the acoustic, socio-cultural, geographic, and chronological overview of timbre-based music.

Harmonic phase (HARP) motion analysis is widely used in the analysis of tagged magnetic resonance images of the heart. HARP motion tracking can yield gross errors, however, when there is a large amount of motion between successive time frames. Methods that use spatial continuity of motion-so-called refinement methods-have previously been reported to reduce these errors. This paper describes a new refinement method based on shortest-path computations. The method uses a graph representation of the image and seeks an optimal tracking order from a specified seed to each point in the image by solving a single source shortest path problem. This minimizes the potential for path dependent solutions which are found in other refinement methods. Experiments on cardiac motion tracking shows that the proposed method can track the whole tissue more robustly and is also computationally efficient.

This paper describes an experimental study of string plucking for the classical harp. Its goal is to characterize the playing parameters that play the most important roles in expressivity, and in the way harp players recognize each other, even on isolated notes--what we call the "acoustical signature" of each player. We have designed a specific experimental setup using a high-speed camera that tracks some markers on the fingers and on the string. This provides accurate three-dimensional positioning of the finger and of the string throughout the plucking action, in different musical contexts. From measurements of ten harp players, combined with measurements of the soundboard vibrations, we extract a set of parameters that finely control the initial conditions of the string's free oscillations. Results indicate that these initial conditions are typically a complex mix of displacement and velocity, with additional rotation. Although remarkably reproducible by a single player--and the more so for professional players--we observe that some of these control parameters vary significantly from one player to another.

Seals are high trophic level feeders that bioaccumulate many contaminants to a greater degree than most lower trophic level organisms. Their trophic status in the marine food web and wide-spread distribution make seals useful sentinels of arctic environmental change. The purpose of this investigation is to document the levels and bioaccumulation potential of radiocaesium in high latitude seal species for which data have not previously been available. The study was carried out on harp, ringed, and bearded seals caught north of the island archipelago of Svalbard (82 degrees N) in 1999. The results are then compared with previous studies in order to elucidate factors responsible for bioaccumulation in Arctic seals. Concentrations of 137Cs were determined in muscle, liver and kidney samples from a total of 10 juvenile and one adult seal. The mean concentration in muscle samples for all animals was 0.23 +/- 0.045 Bq/kg f.w. 137Cs concentrations in both liver and kidney samples were near detection limits (approximately 0.2 Bq/kg f.w.). The results are consistent with previous studies indicating low levels of radiocaesium in Arctic seals in response to a long term trend of decreasing levels of 137Cs in the Barents Sea region. Bioconcentration factors (BCFs) estimated for seals from NE Svalbard are low, ranging from 34 to 130. Comparing these values with reported BCFs for Greenland seals from other sectors of the European Arctic, we suggest that the combination of physiological and ecological factors on radiocaesium bioaccumulation is comparable among different Arctic seal populations. The application of this work to Arctic monitoring and assessment programs is discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the mercury (Hg) Environmental Ratios Multimedia Ecosystem Sources (HERMES) model on two Ontario, Canada lakes (Harp and Dickie) and to include modifications to enable the model to estimate the major model input variables that tend to be missing for lakes with limited datasets. No significant differences were found for either sediment solid or bulk water total mercury (THg) when the HERMES model was applied to the two Ontario lakes, regardless of whether all available data were altered during application or only the 10 variables that tend to cause the most variation in model output (i.e., concentration of THg in atmosphere, water inflow THg concentration, water inflow rate, water volume, surface area, mean depth, suspended particulate matter concentration, settling rate of solids in water column, water temperature, and precipitation rate). Since measured sediment and water THg values do not exist for most lakes removed from industrial activities, empirical relationships were incorporated into the HERMES model framework to provide a method to double-check model output for lakes where this information is unavailable.

BACKGROUND

The Hospital Admission Risk Profile (HARP) instrument is commonly used to assess risk of functional decline when older people are admitted to hospital. HARP has moderate diagnostic accuracy (65%) for downstream decreased scores in activities of daily living. This paper reports the diagnostic accuracy of HARP for downstream quality of life. It also tests whether adding other measures to HARP improves its diagnostic accuracy.

METHODS

One hundred and forty-eight independent community dwelling individuals aged 65 years or older were recruited in the emergency department of one large Australian hospital with a medical problem for which they were discharged without a hospital ward admission. Data, including age, sex, primary language, highest level of education, postcode, living status, requiring care for daily activities, using a gait aid, receiving formal community supports, instrumental activities of daily living in the last week, hospitalization and falls in the last 12 months, and mental state were collected at recruitment. HARP scores were derived from a formula that summed scores assigned to age, activities of daily living, and mental state categories. Physical and mental component scores of a quality of life measure were captured by telephone interview at 1 and 3 months after recruitment.

RESULTS

HARP scores are moderately accurate at predicting downstream decline in physical quality of life, but did not predict downstream decline in mental quality of life. The addition of other variables to HARP did not improve its diagnostic accuracy for either measure of quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS

HARP is a poor predictor of quality of life.

Fluid-filled shells are near-ubiquitous in natural and engineered structures-a familiar example is that of glass harps comprising partially filled wineglasses or glass bowls, whose acoustic properties are readily noticeable. Existing theories modelling the mechanical properties of such systems under vibrational load either vastly simplify shell geometry and oscillatory modal shapes to admit analytical solutions or rely on finite-element black-box computations for general cases, the former yielding poor accuracy and the latter offering limited tractability and physical insight. In the present study, we derive a theoretical framework encompassing elastic shell deformation with structural and viscous dissipation, accommodating arbitrary axisymmetric shell geometries and fluid levels; reductions to closed-form solutions under specific assumptions are shown to be possible. The theory is extensively verified against a range of geometries, fluid levels and fluid viscosities in experiments; an extension of the model encompassing additional solid objects within the fluid-filled shell is also considered and verified. The presented theoretical advance in describing vibrational response is relevant in performance evaluation for engineered structures and quality validation in manufacturing.

The mechanical admittance of the soundboards of four full-size concert harps from three manufacturers was measured, and the results show that there is little variation between them. More detailed vibro-acoustic data were then obtained for an Aoyama Amphion harp. Analysis of these data show that the individual soundholes amplify the radiated sound in successive frequency bands associated with the modal frequencies of the soundboard. The lower holes tend to contribute at the lower end of the frequency scale, and the higher holes at the higher end of the scale.

Harps exist in different forms, from large factory-made concert harps to small hand-made folk harps. This variety presents both a challenge and an opportunity for acousticians. The musical quality of a harp depends on many factors, but key among these is the soundboard. This work sets out to define some general desirable qualities of a harp soundboard. First, in order to understand the relationship between the vibrational behavior of a bare soundboard and that of a completed instrument, a 36-string harp was built from scratch. Measurements were made at each stage of construction, and the results showed how the bare soundboard properties affect those of the finished harp. Second, the soundboards of several harps of different sizes were assessed by measuring the admittances along the string bar. These data showed that one relationship crucial to the quality of the soundboard is that between the modal shapes and modal frequencies of the soundboard, and the position and fundamental frequencies of the strings attached to it. A general statement is made about this relationship, one which should be of use to harp makers.

The heart of the Harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) is described based on the dissection of six specimens of both sexes ranging in body weight from 23.2 to 46.4 kg. The heart is characterized, as in other seals, by a transverse broadness and a flatness of the ventricles along with an apex formed by both ventricles. Heart parameters are used for comparisons with those of other seals and land mammals. The heart width index (heart height/heart circumference) averages 33.4 compared to 28.7 for the Weddell seal and 39.0 for the felids. The right ventricle of the Harp seal heart is relatively long and very broad with a mean length index (TS/heart height) of 68.8 and a mean width index (TP/heart height) of 54.8. These functional heart parameters are discussed and physiological adaptations are suggested.

This study was aimed to investigate the application value of allele frequencies in direct identification of the ambiguous HLA genotypes. The HLA-A, HLA-B and HLADRB1 loci in 658 Chinese Han donor were detected by PCR-SBT method, the ambiguous genotyping samples were identified by using high resolution PCR-SSP and heterozygous ambiguity resolution primers (HAPRs) methods. The relative probability of true genotypes was calculated by using allele frequencies and was compared with true results. The results indicated that the relative probability of true genotype>> 95% in 220 HLA-A ambiguous samples, 238 HLA-B ambiguous samples and 107 HLA-DRB1 ambiguous samples were 99.5% (221/222), 95.8% (228/238) and 97.7% (104/107) respectively. As compared with phenotyping results detected by PCR-SSP and HARP methods, the matching ratios for HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-DRB1 loci were 100% (222/222), 99.6% (237/238) and 99.1% (106/107) respectively, while the mismatch genotypes were observed only in B*3501/5501 and DRB1*1241/1504, the relative probability of them were 40.3% and 2.1% respectively. It is concluded that the detection method using allele frequencies to directly identify the ambiguous HLA genotypes in large scale PCR-SBT genotyping of donors not only can give higher accurate and reliable results, but also is a simple, rapid and cost-saving method. This method has to be used with great care in the identify-test of patient-donor pair before the transplantation.

The use of music as part of a stress reduction therapy has been applied both to premature infants and their parents in the Neonatal Reanimation Service. This aim of music therapy amounts to an attempt to help the premature infant regaining its physical and neurological balance, so important to its psychological and physical development, mainly by masking the sometimes excessive noise present in the intensive care unit and/or in the incubator. Studies have demonstrated the positive impact of music therapy on oxygen saturation, heartbeat, and on the general level of relaxation experienced by premature infants. In this project, the palliative technique used was that of live singing, directly to the infant, accompanied by a pentatonic harp. The aim was to improve the state of health, both physical and psychological, of a group of premature infants, whose gestation period varied between 23 and 36 weeks. The technique used was to apply what amounts to a protective cocoon of sounds to a premature infant in the neonatal unit, which measurably reduced the level of stress as indicated by the babies' increasingly relaxed demeanour and induced a measurable increase on the level of oxygen saturation and a reduction of heart rate.