The function of timbre in the perception of affective intentions: Effect of enculturation in different musical traditions.

Timbre has been identified as a potential component in the communication of affect in music. Although its function as a carrier of perceptually useful information about sound source mechanics has been established, less is understood about whether and how it functions as a carrier of information for communicating affect in music. To investigate these issues, listeners trained in Chinese and Western musical traditions were presented with Phrases, Measures, and Notes of recorded excerpts interpreted with a variety of affective intentions by performers on instruments from the two cultures.

Making space for grief: The impact of remembrance programs for pediatric healthcare providers.

Objectives: While caring for seriously ill children is a rewarding experience, pediatric healthcare providers may experience sadness and emotional distress when their patient dies. These feelings, particularly when not addressed, can lead to negative health and occupational outcomes. Remembrance practices can provide a safe space for staff to process their grief.

Analytical and clinical validation of direct detection of antimicrobial resistance markers by plasma microbial cell-free DNA sequencing.

Unlabelled: Sequencing of plasma microbial cell-free DNA (mcfDNA) has gained increased acceptance as a valuable adjunct to standard-of-care testing for diagnosis of infections throughout the body. Here, we report the analytical and clinical validation of a novel application of mcfDNA sequencing, the non-invasive detection of seven common antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genetic markers in 18 important pathogens. The AMR markers include SCC, , , , and .

Utility of Serial Microbial Cell-free DNA Sequencing for Inpatient and Outpatient Pathogen Surveillance Among Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients.

Background: This study characterizes the clinical utility and validity of the Karius test (KT), a plasma microbial cell-free DNA sequencing platform, as an infection surveillance tool among hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) recipients, including monitoring for cytomegalovirus (CMV) and detecting infections relative to standard microbiologic testing (SMT).

Methods: A prospective, observational cohort study was performed among adult HCT recipients as inpatients and outpatients. Serial KTs were performed starting with 1 sample within 14 days before HCT, then weekly from 7-63 days posttransplant then monthly from 3-12 months post-HCT.

Cost-Effectiveness of Plasma Microbial Cell-Free DNA Sequencing When Added to Usual Care Diagnostic Testing for Immunocompromised Host Pneumonia.

Introduction: Immunocompromised host pneumonia (ICHP) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality, yet usual care (UC) diagnostic tests often fail to identify an infectious etiology. A US-based, multicenter study (PICKUP) among ICHP patients with hematological malignancies, including hematological cell transplant recipients, showed that plasma microbial cell-free DNA (mcfDNA) sequencing provided significant additive diagnostic value.

Aim: The objective of this study was to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of adding mcfDNA sequencing to UC diagnostic testing for hospitalized ICHP patients.

A comparison of dimensional and discrete models for the representation of perceived and induced affect in response to short musical sounds.

Introduction: In musical affect research, there is considerable discussion on the best method to represent affective response. This discussion mainly revolves around the dimensional (valence, tension arousal, energy arousal) and discrete (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, tenderness) models of affect. Here, we compared these models' ability to capture self-reported affect in response to short, affectively ambiguous sounds.

Timbral cues for learning to generalize musical instrument identity across pitch register.

Timbre provides an important cue to identify musical instruments. Many timbral attributes covary with other parameters like pitch. This study explores listeners' ability to construct categories of instrumental sound sources from sounds that vary in pitch.

Modeling Noise-Related Timbre Semantic Categories of Orchestral Instrument Sounds With Audio Features, Pitch Register, and Instrument Family.

Audio features such as inharmonicity, noisiness, and spectral roll-off have been identified as correlates of "noisy" sounds. However, such features are likely involved in the experience of multiple semantic timbre categories of varied meaning and valence. This paper examines the relationships of stimulus properties and audio features with the semantic timbre categories , , and .

Interval and Ratio Scaling of Spectral Audio Descriptors.

Two experiments were conducted for the derivation of psychophysical scales of the following audio descriptors: spectral centroid, spectral spread, spectral skewness, odd-to-even harmonic ratio, spectral deviation, and spectral slope. The stimulus sets of each audio descriptor were synthesized and (wherever possible) independently controlled through appropriate synthesis techniques. Partition scaling methods were used in both experiments, and the scales were constructed by fitting well-behaving functions to the listeners' ratings.

Ordinal scaling of temporal audio descriptors and perceptual significance of attack temporal centroid in timbre spaces.

Temporal audio features play an important role in timbre perception and sound identification. An experiment was conducted to test whether listeners are able to rank order synthesized stimuli over a wide range of feature values restricted within the range of instrument sounds. The following audio descriptors were tested: attack and decay time, temporal centroid with fixed attack and decay time, and inharmonicity.

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Influence of Timbre on Affect Perception in Western Classical Music and Chinese Music Traditions.

Timbre is one of the psychophysical cues that has a great impact on affect perception, although, it has not been the subject of much cross-cultural research. Our aim is to investigate the influence of timbre on the perception of affect conveyed by Western and Chinese classical music using a cross-cultural approach. Four listener groups (Western musicians, Western nonmusicians, Chinese musicians, and Chinese nonmusicians; 40 per group) were presented with 48 musical excerpts, which included two musical excerpts (one piece of Chinese and one piece of Western classical music) per affect quadrant from the valence-arousal space, representing angry, happy, peaceful, and sad emotions and played with six different instruments (, , , violin, flute, and guitar).

Ordinal scaling of timbre-related spectral audio descriptors.

A psychophysical experiment was conducted to perceptually validate several spectral audio features through ordinal scaling: spectral centroid, spectral spread, spectral skewness, odd-to-even harmonic ratio, spectral slope, and harmonic spectral deviation. Several sets of stimuli per audio feature were synthesized at different fundamental frequencies and spectral centroids by controlling (wherever possible) each spectral feature independently of the others, thus isolating the effect that each feature had on the stimulus rankings within each sound set. Listeners were overall able to order stimuli varying along all the spectral features tested when presented with an appropriate spacing of feature values.

Learning metrics on spectrotemporal modulations reveals the perception of musical instrument timbre.

Humans excel at using sounds to make judgements about their immediate environment. In particular, timbre is an auditory attribute that conveys crucial information about the identity of a sound source, especially for music. While timbre has been primarily considered to occupy a multidimensional space, unravelling the acoustic correlates of timbre remains a challenge.

Robot Assisted Renal Allograft Nephrectomy: Initial Case Series and Description of Technique.

Objective: To evaluate the outcomes and perioperative complication rates following robot- assisted transplant nephrectomy ((RATN).

Methods: All patients who underwent RATN at our institution were included. No exclusion criteria were applied.

Room-Temperature Production of Nanocrystalline Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS) at the Liquid-Liquid Interface.

Scalable synthesis of 2D materials is a prerequisite for their commercial exploitation. Here, a novel method of producing nanocrystalline molybdenum disulfide (MoS) at the liquid-liquid interface is demonstrated by decomposing a molecular precursor (tetrakis(diethyldithiocarbamato) molybdenum(IV)) in an organic solvent. The decomposition occurs over a few hours at room temperature without stirring or the addition of any surfactants, producing MoS which can be isolated onto substrates of choice.

High-throughput chemical and chemoenzymatic approaches to saccharide-coated magnetic nanoparticles for MRI.

There is a need for biofunctionalised magnetic nanoparticles for many biomedical applications, including MRI contrast agents that have a range of surface properties and functional groups. A library of eleven adducts, each formed by condensing a reducing sugar with a catechol hydrazide, for nanoparticle functionalisation has been created using a high-throughput chemical synthesis methodology. The enzymatic transformation of an -acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) adduct into an -acetyllactosamine adduct by β-1,4-galactosyltransferase illustrates how chemoenzymatic methods could provide adducts bearing complex and expensive glycans.

Predictive Factors for Achieving the Recommended AUA Daily Urine Production in Patients With Nephrolithiasis.

Objective: To identify factors that predict kidney stone patient's ability to produce 2.5 L urine volume per day on metabolic evaluation.

Patients And Methods: In a retrospective chart review, the first analysis evaluated 24-hour urine collections with respect to those who achieved or did not achieve a urine volume of 2.

Correction: Synthetic 2-D lead tin sulfide nanosheets with tuneable optoelectronic properties from a potentially scalable reaction pathway.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1039/C8SC04018D.].

Synthetic 2-D lead tin sulfide nanosheets with tuneable optoelectronic properties from a potentially scalable reaction pathway.

Solventless thermolysis of molecular precursors followed by liquid phase exfoliation allows access to two-dimensional IV-VI semiconductor nanomaterials hitherto unreachable by a scalable processing pathway. Firstly, the use of metal dithiocarbamate precursors to produce bulk alloys in the series Pb Sn S (0 ≤ ≤ 1) by thermolysis is demonstrated. The bulk powders are characterised by powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy.

Expectations for tonal cadences: Sensory and cognitive priming effects.

Studies examining the formation of melodic and harmonic expectations during music listening have repeatedly demonstrated that a tonal context primes listeners to expect certain (tonally related) continuations over others. However, few such studies have (1) selected stimuli using ready examples of expectancy violation derived from real-world instances of tonal music, (2) provided a consistent account for the influence of sensory and cognitive mechanisms on tonal expectancies by comparing different computational simulations, or (3) combined melodic and harmonic representations in modelling cognitive processes of expectation. To resolve these issues, this study measures expectations for the most recurrent cadence patterns associated with tonal music and then simulates the reported findings using three sensory-cognitive models of auditory expectation.

High magnetic relaxivity in a fluorescent CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dot functionalized with MRI contrast molecules.

Light emitting semiconducting quantum dots show great promise as solar cells, optoelectronic devices and multimodal imaging probes. Here we demonstrate successful grafting of a thiol-functionalised Gd MRI contrast agent onto the surface of core-multishell CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots. The resulting nanoprobe exhibits intense photoluminescence and unprecedentedly large T relaxivity of 6800 mM s per nanoparticle due to secure implanting of ca.

Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate After Prostatic Urethral Lift Surgery: Feasibility and Technical Considerations from a Multi-Institutional Case Series.

Introduction And Objective: Ten percent of patients undergoing prostatic urethral lift (PUL) require repeat surgical treatment within 3 years. We describe the feasibility and considerations of performing holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) as a salvage therapy after previous PUL.

Methods: Men who had undergone HoLEP after PUL were retrospectively identified from three institutions with surgeons experienced in HoLEP.

Morcellation Efficiency in Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate: Oscillating Morcellator Outperforms Reciprocating Morcellator With no Apparent Learning Curve.

Objective: To compare the morcellation efficiency of the Wolf Piranha oscillating morcellator with the Lumenis VersaCut reciprocating morcellator.

Materials And Methods: After institutional review board approval, we conducted a retrospective analysis of patients undergoing holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) for symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia. The first 41 cases of HoLEP with morcellation performed with the oscillating morcellator were matched by weight of resected tissue to 41 control patients from our historic data set who underwent morcellation with the reciprocating system.