The evidence found through comparing and contrasting staging manuals strongly suggests that Massenet might have been involved in the staging of his operas. Several important differences, which include the implications of the use of a chair versus a bed in the final scene, are presented through a comparison of the final duet of Massenet's Opera Thaïs in a restaging from the livret de mise en scène F-Pbh T 8 (1) with the Metropolitan Opera's 2008 production. In addition, a probable date between the premiere in 1894 and the revision in 1898 for the livret de mise en scène F-Pbh T 8 (1) is deliberated. Three staging manuals for Thaïs are examined, which were found to contain the same information, and these findings are contrasted with four staging materials for Massenet's opera Manon and several other staging materials for works by various composers.

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This dissertation presents a new approach to image interpretation which can produce hierarchical descriptions of visually sensed scenes based on an incrementally learnt hierarchical knowledge base. Multiple segmentation and labelling hypotheses are generated with local constraint satisfaction being achieved through a hierarchical form of relaxation labelling. The traditionally unidirectional segmentation-matching process is recast into a dynamic closed-loop system where the current interpretation state is used to drive the lower level image processing functions. The theory presented in this dissertation is applied to a new object recognition and scene understanding system called Cite which is described in detail.

An Autumn Scene of Shatin was composed between March and April, 2000. This ensemble piece is written for solo soprano, female chorus, clarinet, bassoon, violin, violoncello, piano and percussion (one player). The composition was named after the poem An Autumn Scene of Shatin, written by Prof. Yu Chung-Kwuang. The composer tried to express the images of the poem by word-painting. The designs of musical structure and the text were tightly connected. The form of this work is through-composed. It can be divided into four parts£º Adagio - Un poco animato - Chorale grandioso - Adagio. At the two-third length of the work, the composer quoted the Renaissance Mass L¡¯homme arm¨¨ to present special sound. Most of the main melodies of this piece are sung by solo soprano, and the transitions between sections are played by female chorus and instrumentalists. The manipulation of texture is an important element. The vocal pitch material is based on interval. On the other hand, the overall instrument pitch is used with tone row. The special technique of strings with overtones, pizzcato, glissando, col legno and sul ponticello are illustrated to create extraordinary effects. This exquisite piece is like a miniature tone poem with words.

Effective everyday hearing requires the auditory system to organize auditory input into perceptual streams corresponding to objects of interest. Changes in this process may be responsible for age-related deterioration in the capacity to effectively hear important sounds masked by background noise. Younger (18-25) and older (55+) adults with healthy hearing listened to 10-second intervals of a simple pattern of “ABA” tone triplets. The ABA patterns are used as a model of real-world auditory streaming, because they are initially perceived as one integrated stream, and over time are reorganized into two segregated streams. Participants performed a target-detection task designed to index their perceptual organization of the tones, which does not depend on potentially-biased, subjective judgment (Thompson, Carlyon, & Cusack, 2011). Complex tones with narrowly-spaced, unresolvable frequency components were used in this experiment to control for age-related decreases in frequency selectivity. Both groups demonstrated a capacity for segregating the A and B tones based on differences in harmonic spacing, as predicted. However, despite our acoustic controls the older adults showed significantly less segregation of the 6ST stimuli, indicating that there are additional age-related changes in auditory streaming, which make them less likely to segregate in response to harmonic spacing differences. Additionally, older adults showed significantly better overall performance on the task than younger adults, indicating that the age differences are not simply due to age-related deficits in task execution. The ABA intervals were presented either continuously, or with 5-second interruptions prior to each trial that have previously been shown to “reset” perceptual streaming back to an integrated percept (Cusack, Deeks, Aikman, & Carlyon, 2004). For both age groups interruptions preceding the ABA intervals were shown to be capable of resulting in decreased segregation, as predicted. Targets were presented at 4 time points (2, 4, 6, and 8 seconds) in order to test for age differences in the time course of streaming. In the results for the 8-semitone stimuli, we observed strong evidence for delayed build-up in older adults, in response to the Gap condition. However, this evidence was not statistically conclusive and future experiments are needed determine the effect’s validity. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-20 10:50:27.01

An autonomous robot able to navigate inside an unknown environment and reconstruct full 3D scene models using monocular video has been a long term goal in the field of Machine Vision. A key component of such a system is the reconstruction of surface models from estimated scene structure. Sparse 3D measurements of real scenes are readily estimated from N-view image sequences using structure-from-motion techniques. In this thesis we present a geometric theory for reconstruction of surface models from sparse 3D data captured from N camera views. Based on this theory we introduce a general N-view algorithm for reconstruction of 3D models of arbitrary scenes from sparse data. Using a hypothesise and verify strategy this algorithm reconstructs a surface model which interpolates the sparse data and is guaranteed to be consistent with the feature visibility in the N-views. To achieve efficient reconstruction independent of the number of views a simplified incremental algorithm is developed which integrates the feature visibility independently for each view. This approach is shown to converge to an approximation of the real scene structure and have a computational cost which is linear in the number of views. Surface hypothesis are generated based on a new incremental planar constrained Delaunay triangulation algorithm. We present a statistical geometric framework to explicitly consider noise inherent in estimates of 3D scene structure from any real vision system. This approach ensures that the reconstruction is reliable in the presence of noise and missing data. Results are presented for reconstruction of both real and synthetic scenes together with an evaluation of the reconstruction performance in the presence of noise.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Logan Thomas Reagan, for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater, presented on December 5, 2015, at Southern Illinois University. TITLE: RAGTIME: A SCENIC DESIGN MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Ronald Naversen This document covers the process of scenic design for the Southern Illinois University Department of Theater production of Ragtime. The productions were held on the following dates: October 24-27, 2013. The first chapter provides an in depth analysis of the script. The second Chapter focuses on the design process leading into the third chapter which focuses on the build process. The final chapter focuses on an evaluation and reflection of the previous chapters processes. Included in the Appendices are further documentation used throughout the design and build processes. These include charts, research images, models, storyboards, draftings, paint elevations and production photos.

This thesis encompasses the design and production process for Southern Illinois University Carbondale Department of Theater’s production, Evil Dead: The Musical. The writing focuses on the scene designer’s process of analyzing a script to putting it on stage. Through the document the reader will gain insight into the process of a live production from the pre-design phase to post production.

Neural circuits that mediate complex behaviors contain several cell types, yet little is known about the role of each cell type within these circuits. An example problem in the auditory domain is how cortical circuits process complex natural sounds amidst competing stimuli from different spatial sources, also known as the "cocktail party effect". A pre-study recorded cortical responses in songbirds and found that neurons are broadly tuned to sound location when only one sound is present; when a competing stimulus is introduced, neurons sharpen their spatial tuning. These results were visualized by "spatial grids" that show preferred sound source locations in the presence of competing stimuli. These experiments motivated a computational model which proposed that lateral inhibition between spatially tuned channels within cortex is a key mechanism for spatial sound segregation. Cortical circuits are known to contain both excitatory cells and subpopulations of inhibitory interneurons, the roles of which can be probed in vivo with optogenetic techniques. Motivated by these past results and the optogenetic tools readily available in the mouse model, I present experimental and computational approaches in uncovering the cortical circuits that aid in solving the cocktail party problem in mouse auditory cortex (ACx). First, I probe the role of parvalbumin-expressing (PV) interneurons in solving the cocktail party problem using optogenetic and electrophysiological techniques. I found that mice exhibit similar cortical spatial grids as in songbirds, and optogenetic suppression of PV neurons reduces discriminability between dynamic sounds in both clean and masked presentations of spatially distributed stimuli. To mechanistically explain these results, I create a two-layer computational model of ACx with PV subpopulations that respond to distinct temporal stimulus features. I found that differentially weighing inhibition from these interneurons captures the range of neural discriminability performances found in cortex and the effects of optogenetically suppressing PV cells. Next, I analyze the population coding of neurons during the cocktail party problem. Here, I found that a relatively compact and diverse population of neurons within cortex is sufficient for encoding sounds from competing spatial locations. Finally, I determine how changes in behavioral states via tone extinction tasks affect activity in ACx and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Results show that alpha and beta oscillations (8-18 Hz) in response to unrewarded tones exhibited immediate and robust increases in both regions prior to behavioral changes. When subjects learned to suppress behavioral responses, coherence at 8-18 Hz between ACx and mPFC was enhanced and spiking at ACx in response to the unrewarded tone was decreased. Taken together, this work advances the knowledge of both bottom-up and top-down circuit mechanisms underlying the cocktail party problem. / 2024-01-16T00:00:00Z