This article investigates the approaches and attributes of publicly situated sound installations which have achieved the status of permanency, and have attracted ongoing local, and even international, visitors. The article draws on international fieldwork in 2015 that documented several enduring sound installations in the United States, UK and Europe. Through an inductive process including listening exercises, sound recordings, observations and interviews, the analysis identifies three approaches to creating sound installations and ten attributes of operative sound installations. It is argued that by encouraging public listening, the discussed sound installations successfully establish a sensory connection between people and their environments. By extension, it is argued that this emergent sense of place is commensurate with the installations’ capacity to augment a pre-existing ‘spirit of place’. These findings culminate in a sonic placemaking tool for situating sound art installations in urban spaces. It is suggested that urban planners and designers can apply the presented sonic placemaking tool to augment a site’s spirit of place, thereby affecting new experiences in everyday urban life.

This article posits the notion of the post-acousmatic. It considers the work of contemporary practitioners who are indebted to the Schaefferian heritage, but pursue alternative trajectories from the established canonical discourse of acousmatic music. It will outline the authors’ definition of the term and also outline a network of elements such as time, rhythm, pitch, dynamics, noise and performance to discuss work that the authors’ consider to be a critique, an augmentation and an outgrowth of acousmatic music and thinking.

In this article we discuss how contemporary computational and electronic music-making practices might be characterised as a post-digital avant-garde. We also discuss how practitioners within the higher education sector can play a role in leading the development of these practices through their research and teaching. A brief overview of twentieth-century avant-garde practices is provided to set the scene before a case for defining a post-digital avant-garde is made. By way of illustration, the authors describe their own post-digital creative practices and then discuss how these integrate into their academic duties. We reflect on themes that run through avant-garde practices and continue into the post-digital. Finally, we describe how these themes inform an undergraduate music technology programme such that it might be shaped to reflect these developments and prepare students for a post-digital future.

Real-time computer music is now common and ubiquitous, no longer a new or experimental practice. In its infancy, it helped to solve perceived issues with the fixity of tape pieces, a natural continuation in the practice of live electronics. However, real-time computer music did not have the same consequences as live electronic music. This situation engendered many discussions about the liveness of real-time computer music performances at the time. It is now 20 years past those first conversations, and it is important to revisit what is ‘live’ and how it applies to real-time musics. Additionally, in some ways, the language surrounding descriptions of fixed medium works, mixed works, live electronics and real-time computer music has evolved and, perhaps, even settled into conventions distinguishing musical approach and philosophies. This article first defines the language, not to proselytise, but rather to ground the argument. The conclusion asserts that liveness is a spectrum despite the fact that ‘live’ is often used categorically. Though one may have an intuitive understanding of what constitutes a ‘live’ event, this article explicitly articulates the most significantly contributive factors. The nature of real-time computer music is explored in relation to these factors of liveness. Using musical examples, this article shows that ‘real-time’ music does not guarantee a ‘live’ performance, contrary to what is typically held to be true. Instead, ‘real-time’ simply becomes a descriptor of compositional method, and any real-time work can exist along a broad range of the liveness spectrum.

When soundscape composers, documentarians and artists work with soundscapes, they are expressing relationships with the world, through their treatment of place, sounds and audience. A number of questions could be asked about these expressions about places, the ethics of these expressions, and the ways in which these ethics are informed by underlying ideologies of sound, of sound production and of sound ecology. One key question concerns a common distinction between ‘high-fidelity’ and ‘low-fidelity’. Are there some – possibly unintended or unexamined – ethical implications embedded in the dichotomisation of ‘hi-fi’ vs ‘lo-fi’ in soundscape theory? Is this really an essential or unavoidable concept and expression, or are there alternatives? One such possible alternative is found in the concept of the ecotone – a marginal zone, a transitional area or time where species from adjacent ecosystems interact. This leads us to an idea of ‘ecotonality’ that might offer a more flexible, less polarised, alternative to the hi-fi/lo-fi dichotomy. Finally, we will interrogate three themes around ideas of soundscape ’authenticity’: authenticity of place, authenticity of production and authenticity of connection.

Legged robots may become unstable when subjected to unexpected disturbances such as external pushes and environmental irregularities mostly while moving on natural terrains. To enhance the mobility performance, legged robots should be able to keep or restore their balanced configuration when a sudden disturbance is exerted. The aim of this article is to design a controller for a quadruped robot to restore its balanced configuration despite exerting external pushes. This is achieved based on developing a full-dynamics model of the robot moving over even and uneven terrains. The proposed controller is based on a PD module which calculates the required accelerations for restoring the robot equilibrium. However, these accelerations may make the robot unstable and also cause the slippage of stance feet. Therefore, an optimization algorithm is used to compute the maximum admissible accelerations. The constraints of the optimization problem are the conditions which guarantee the robot stability and the stance feet slippage avoidance. The optimization algorithm is transformed into a linear constrained least-squares problem to be solved in real-time. The main contributions of this article are the development of a push recovery algorithm for quadruped robots and also the introduction of an appropriate condition which guarantees the stability of the robot even on uneven terrains. This stability condition is developed based on a full-dynamics model of the robot. The proposed algorithm is applied on an 18-DOF quadruped robot when the robot is standing over both even and uneven terrains. The obtained results show that the robot can successfully restore its balanced configuration by precise adjustment of the position and orientation of its main body while a massive external disturbance is exerted.

In this article we describe a bunch of probability logics with quantifiers over events, and develop primary techniques for proving computational complexity results (in terms of m-degrees) about these logics, mainly over discrete probability spaces. Also the article contains a comparison with some other probability logics and a discussion of interesting analogies with research in the metamathematics of Boolean algebras, demonstrating a number of attractive features and intuitive advantages of the present proposal.

We analyze a construction for optimal nested group-testing procedures, and show that, when individuals are independently positive with probability p, the expected number of tests per positive individual, F*(p), has, as p→0, the asymptotic behavior

$$F^{\ast}(p) = \log_2 {1\over p} + \log_2 \log 2 + 2 + f\left(\log_2 {1\over p} + \log_2 \log 2\right) + O(p),$$

$$f(z) = 4\times 2^{-2^{1-\{z\}}} - \{z\} - 1,$$

“Guess Who?” is a popular two player game where players ask “Yes”/“No” questions to search for their opponent's secret identity from a pool of possible candidates. This is modeled as a simple stochastic game. Using this model, the optimal strategy is explicitly found. Contrary to popular belief, performing a binary search is not always optimal. Instead, the optimal strategy for the player who trails is to make certain bold plays in an attempt catch up. This is discovered by first analyzing a continuous version of the game where players play indefinitely and the winner is never decided after finitely many rounds.

The runtime for a modern, concurrent, garbage collected language like Java or Haskell is like an operating system: sophisticated, complex, performant, but alas very hard to change. If more of the runtime system were in the high-level language, it would be far more modular and malleable. In this paper, we describe a novel concurrency substrate design for the Glasgow Haskell Compiler that allows multicore schedulers for concurrent and parallel Haskell programs to be safely and modularly described as libraries in Haskell. The approach relies on abstracting the interface to the user-implemented schedulers through scheduler activations, together with the use of Software Transactional Memory to promote safety in a multicore context.

Despite a growing body of research on task-based language learning (TBLT) (Samuda & Bygate, 2008; Ellis, 2003), there is still little information available regarding the pedagogical design behind tasks and how they are implemented (Samuda & Bygate, 2008). Scholars in computer-mediated second language (L2) learning have called for research to fill in this gap by reflecting critically on task design and the subsequent implementation process (Fuchs, Hauck & Müller-Hartmann, 2012; Hampel, 2010; Hampel & Hauck, 2006; Hampel & Plaines, 2013; Hauck, 2010), instead of considering a task an “unproblematic fait accompli” (O’Dowd & Ware, 2009: 174). In response to this charge, the present case study provides a critical analysis of tasks carried out in a first-year German language course built around the weekly TV-series, Rosenheim-Cops (ZDF). These tasks drew from research on multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Norris & Maier, 2014) providing a framework for understanding how multiple semiotic systems work together to create meaning. The insights provided by this study have relevance for research on multimodal task design (Hampel & Hauck, 2006) through examining the possibilities and limitations of beginner second language (L2) learners’ effective use of authentic resources. The results suggest that the tasks encouraged semiotic awareness, helped activate referential knowledge useful for accessing multimodal resources, and elicited a positive response to authentic L2 use in context. The challenges of implementing these tasks included variation in learners’ engagement with authentic multimedia resources, either due to L2 skills levels or the level of interest in the particular resource used.

This study reports on a qualitative study which explored 32 pre-service teachers’ evaluations of two online seven-week introductory courses in corpus linguistics (CL). Data were gathered through questionnaires, participants’ written journals, post-course semi-structured email interviews, and discussion forum entries. The qualitative analysis of data revealed that for successful integration of CL into online language teacher education programs, several procedures should be employed. These include: providing the necessary technological infrastructure in educational settings; incorporating CL instruction in initial stages of language teacher education degree programs and extending it throughout the whole curriculum; focusing more on the practical aspects of CL with much emphasis placed on the necessary pedagogical knowledge and skills for successful exploitation of CL; introducing user-friendly tools and encouraging indirect use of corpora in the absence of necessary technological facilities; providing adequate and effective instructional materials (text-based reading materials, screen capture videos, hands-on activities, etc.) along with sufficient instructor support; and encouraging the participants to reflect on the approach critically. The findings may promise implications for language teacher educators to effectively introduce CL to student teachers in virtual learning environments.

We consider computation with real numbers that arise through a process of physical measurement. We have developed a theory in which physical experiments that measure quantities can be used as oracles to algorithms and we have begun to classify the computational power of various forms of experiment using non-uniform complexity classes. Earlier, in Beggs et al. (2014 Reviews of Symbolic Logic7(4) 618–646), we observed that measurement can be viewed as a process of comparing a rational number z – a test quantity – with a real number y – an unknown quantity; each oracle call performs such a comparison. Experiments can then be classified into three categories, that correspond with being able to return test results

$$\begin{eqnarray*}z < y\text{ or }z > y\text{ or }\textit{timeout},\\z < y\text{ or }\textit{timeout},\\z \neq y\text{ or }\textit{timeout}.\end{eqnarray*}$$

This paper presents a generalization of the Compressed Extended Kalman Filter (CEKF) by introducing the definition of the compressed operation for Bayesian estimation processes and the definition of the Generalized Compressed Kalman Filter (GCKF). The GCKF extends the original definition of the CEKF, formerly introduced for treating a family of estimation problems, such as the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The new proposed approach, the GCKF, is capable of treating problems that are more general than those of the original CEKF, such as estimation processes that involve certain stochastic Partial Differential Equation (SPDE) models. In addition to solving the SLAM and multi-agent SLAM problem in an efficient way, the GCKF can be applied to more general cases. As a proof of the capabilities of the new method for solving practical estimation problems, a multi-agent SLAM process is presented in the experimental section of this paper.

Battery-powered wireless sensor networks have been extensively deployed in condition monitoring and structural health monitoring systems, but the performance of wireless sensors are limited by battery capacity and difficulty of application in rotating machines. In this paper, a variety of commercial wireless charging solutions and coil-shaft configurations for magnetic coupling are compared, having in mind of the application of continuously charging wireless sensors on rotating machines. For the co-axial configuration of the transmitter coil and the receiver coil, a Qi standard compliant wireless charging kit and a custom charging circuit are successfully applied to charge wireless sensors on small rotating test rigs. In order to harvest and store intermittent energy input from the wireless power source, a prototype receiver circuit using a supercapacitor and low-dropout regulator is designed and validated. Based on the prototype circuit, the radial configuration of single transmitter coil and multiple receiver coils is demonstrated for wireless power transfer to the sensor nodes on the drivetrain of a small wind turbine test rig.

This paper is a part of the ongoing program of analysing the complexity of various problems in computable analysis in terms of the complexity of the associated index sets. In the framework of effectively enumerable topological spaces, we investigate the following question: given an effectively enumerable topological space whether there exists a computable numbering of all its computable elements. We present a natural sufficient condition on the family of basic neighbourhoods of computable elements that guarantees the existence of a principal computable numbering. We show that weakly-effective ω–continuous domains and the natural numbers with the discrete topology satisfy this condition. We prove weak and strong analogues of Rice's theorem for computable elements. Then, we construct principal computable numberings of partial majorant-computable real-valued functions and co-effectively closed sets and calculate the complexity of index sets for important problems such as root verification and function equality. For example, we show that, for partial majorant-computable real functions, the equality problem is Π1 1-complete.

A dyadic subbase S of a topological space X is a subbase consisting of a countable collection of pairs of open subsets that are exteriors of each other. If a dyadic subbase S is proper, then we can construct a dcpo DS in which X is embedded. We study properties of S with respect to two aspects. (i) Whether the dcpo DS is consistently complete depends on not only S itself but also the enumeration of S. We give a characterization of S that induces the consistent completeness of DS regardless of its enumeration. (ii) If the space X is regular Hausdorff, then X is embedded in the minimal limit set of DS . We construct an example of a Hausdorff but non-regular space with a dyadic subbase S such that the minimal limit set of DS is empty.

Computable analysis and effective descriptive set theory are both concerned with complete metric spaces, functions between them and subsets thereof in an effective setting. The precise relationship of the various definitions used in the two disciplines has so far been neglected, a situation this paper is meant to remedy.

As the role of the Cauchy completion is relevant for both effective approaches to Polish spaces, we consider the interplay of effectivity and completion in some more detail.