The present study investigated how knowledge of tonality is used in sight-reading by comparing sight-reading accuracy across three tonal constructs: major, minor and atonal. It was hypothesized that sight-reading performance would be the worst in instances with no tonal information, as participants would be unable to generate appropriate top-down expectancies to guide their sight-reading. To test this, twelve pianists sight-read major, minor and atonal versions of monophonic, homophonic and polyphonic excerpts. The results indicated that pianists performed the major excerpts with greater accuracy than the atonal excerpts. Furthermore, the errors made within the major excerpts were significantly biased towards diatonicism, and there was a global shift towards tonality in participants’ atonal performances, providing a clear demonstration of how pianists’ expectations might have contributed to their sight-reading performance. The diatonic bias was not found in the minor excerpts, suggesting that the minor hierarchy does exert as strong of an influence during sight-reading.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / School of Music

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a microcomputer-assisted instructional program on the ability of college choral ensemble members to sing melodic configurations at sight.A two-way analysis of variance was constructed to research four questions. After a microcomputer was obtained and set up, two criterion tests--the Singing AchievementTest (Bowles) and a microcomputer-generated sightsinging test (MGST)--were given to forty-one members of choral performing ensembles at Fort Wayne Bible College. The students were divided into two ability groups based upon the Singing Achievement Test pretest scores. Each ability group was then randomly divided into experimental and control groups by means of a table of random numbers. There was no attempt made to single out participants with special abilities or trainingAn eight-week experiment with the microcomputer program, MELODIOUS DICTATOR, was constructed consisting of three non-consecutive fifteen-minute periods per week for all experimental group participants. The control group attended choral rehearsals with the experimental group but had no exposure to the computer program. After the eight weeks, the same criterion tests were readministered to all participants. An Opinionnaire was also completed by the students in the experimental group.Data-were processed statistically by the use of a two-way analysis of variance. The ability level group and the experimental/control group were independent variables. Pretest scores for Singing Achievement Test, melodic errors-Singing Achievement Test, and microcomputer-generated sightsinging test, and posttest scores for the same three tests were the dependent variables. Results of these data and observations from the Opinionnaire led to the following conclusions:1. There was no significant effect on the ability of college choral ensemble members to sing melodic configurations at sight through the use of the MELODIOUS DICTATOR as measured by mean scores of two criterion posttests.2. Differences in criterion posttest mean scores between high and low ability groups were significant at the .05 level.3. The MELODIOUS DICTATOR assisted students in the development of their melodic dictation skills as measured by the difference between the first and last experiment total notes notated and total notes notated correctly. However, no relationship was found between success as measured by the MELODIOUS DICTATOR and the individual student's perception of success as measured by the Opinionnaire.4. Students did have a somewhat positive attitude toward the MELODIOUS DICTATOR as revealed by the Opinionnaire.While the MELODIOUS DICTATOR did not seem to improve sightsinging skills significantly, benefits of the CAI program were evident through direct contact between the program and the students. The need for supervision, tutoring, and maintenance was negligible. Students also expressed interest in other experiences with the microcomputer according to the results of the Opinionnaire.

This thesis proposes two acoustic localisation techniques that are accurate in Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) conditions and system implementation of the proposed techniques. Such conditions can cause positive bias errors, namely NLoS errors, in the measured Time-of-Arrivals (ToAs) of first-arrival signals received by microphones and thus reduce the positioning accuracy. The primary issue of the thesis is to precisely estimate and correct the NLoS errors by modelling the received first-arrival signals. The first proposed technique uses multiple on-ground microphones to locate a sound source. The proposed technique approximately estimates and corrects the NLoS errors based on an initial guess of the sound source position and a map. The localisation is then achieved by iteratively correcting the ToAs and updating the sound source location. The strength of the proposed technique is that its accuracy is not notably affected by small or known obstacles. The proposed technique is implemented into two localisation systems of controlled and uncontrolled sound sources. The performance of the proposed technique is investigated by its comparison with three other time-based localisation techniques in series of experiments and simulations, showing at least 10% improvement by the proposed technique under various background noise levels. The second proposed technique localises a sound source using a single on-ground microphone subject to an assumption of a single diffraction in the first-arrival signal. To predict the angular and radial coordinates of the sound source relative to the diffraction point, a new magnitude delay frequency profile is proposed. The profile can be estimated by applying the uniform geometrical theory of diffraction and be extracted from measured signals using a derived formulation. Similar to the first technique, the second proposed technique estimates the measured delay of the first-arrival signal for computing the radial coordinate. The angular coordinate is then obtained by matching the estimated and measured profiles at the measured delay. A key achievement of the second proposed technique is enabling NLoS localisation using only one microphone without any time-consuming pre-measurement. This technique is implemented into a localisation system of a controlled sound source and validated experimentally with three different sound sources and under two background noise levels.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 29, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.M.)--Cleveland State University, 2007. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 8, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-82). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1939. / Vita. Published also as Teachers college, Columbia university, Contributions to education, no. 775. Music tests, etc.: [30] p. (variously paged). Bibliography: p. 106-108.

Sight in subterranean mammals living in a dark ecotope has generally been assumed as not needed and therefore greatly diminished in its function. Recent neuroanatomical studies demonstrate unexpected preservation of the visual system of several African mole-rats (Bathyergidae, Rodentia). Only a few behavioural studies, testing visual abilities and discussing their adaptive significance in these rodents, have been published to date. A spontaneous preference to light stimuli of two mole-rat species, the silvery mole-rat (Heliophobius argenteocinereus) and the giant mole-rat (Fukomys mechowii), was tested in this study. Assessed results showed convincingly that both species are able to perceive light. The following experiments provided the first behavioural support to the perception of short-wavelengths in this intensively studied group of subterranean rodents.

Orientador: Ricardo Goldemberg / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T11:07:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_Ronaldoda_M.pdf: 808878 bytes, checksum: 6800d3965c9d9a3f8f855c245692dc32 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Essa pesquisa é um estudo exploratório de natureza qualitativa, e tem como objetivo, analisar a relevância da leitura cantada e da audiação na vida do músico profissional. Inicialmente, apresentam-se dois olhares possíveis para o estudo da leitura cantada: o histórico e o psicológico. O primeiro dirige-se a uma revisão sintética e histórica da sistematização da escrita musical tradicional (a partir do século XI), tendo em vista a preocupação dos principais educadores musicais em facilitar o aprendizado musical, utilizando como uma das ferramentas, a leitura cantada. O segundo olhar, o psicológico, discute aspectos relativos à audiação, que engloba o pensamento musical consciente, expresso, como uma de suas formas, na possibilidade de leitura da partitura de maneira mental e autônoma. Diante da fundamentação teórica, foram colhidos depoimentos de seis músicos profissionais (dois instrumentistas, dois regentes e dois compositores), por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas, com o objetivo de conhecer suas experiências no campo da leitura cantada e da audiação, no período de formação musical e vida profissional. O resultado da análise de conteúdo dos dados coletados gerou um discurso do sujeito coletivo dos principais temas da pesquisa, no qual se verificou o papel colaborador da leitura cantada no processo da construção da audiação. Constatou-se também a necessidade de conscientização, por parte dos alunos, docentes e instituições de ensino, sobre a importância de se estimular a aquisição das competências aurais no aprendizado musical, por meio de disciplinas integradas, com conteúdos instigantes à audiação, a fim de proporcionar aos alunos o desenvolvimento cada vez maior de suas habilidades musicais / Abstract: This research is an exploratory study of qualitative nature, and aims to examine the relevance of sight-singing and audiation in the life of a professional musician. Initially, two possible views are presented for the study of sight-singing: historical and psychological. The former comprises a summarized historical review of the systematization of traditional musical notation (beginning in the 11th century) and concerns of the main musical educators to facilitate music learning using, among other tools, sight-singing. The psychological view discusses aspects regarding audiation, which comprises conscious musical thought, expressed, under one of its forms, in the possibility of reading a musical score in a mental and autonomous manner. Drawing upon this theoretical basis, statements of six professional musicians (two instrument players, two conductors, and two composers) were gathered through semi-structured interviews in order to know their experiences in the field of sight-singing and audiation, during their period of musical formation and professional life. The result of the analysis of the content of the gathered data provided a discourse of the collective subject of the main themes of the research, in which the auxiliary role of sight-singing in the process of construction of audiation was confirmed, as well as the need of awareness, on the part of students, professors and teaching institutions, of the importance of acquisition of aural competencies on the part of the students, by means of integrated subjects, with interesting contents, so as to constantly improve their musical abilities / Mestrado / Fundamentos Teoricos / Mestre em Música

Optical wireless communication systems based on ultraviolet (UV)-band has a lot inherent advantages, such as low background solar radiation, low device dark noise. Besides, it also has small restrictive requirements for PAT (pointing, acquisition, and tracking) because of its high atmospheric scattering with molecules and aerosols. And these advantages are driving people to explore and utilize UV band for constructing and implementing a high-data-rate, less PAT communication links, such as diffuse-line-of-sight links (diffuse-LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS). The responsivity of the photodetector at UV range is far lower than that of visible range, high power UV transmitters which can be easily modulated are under investigation. These factors make it is hard to realize a high-data-rate diffuse-LOS or NLOS UV communication links. To achieve a UV link mentioned above with current devices and modulation schemes, this thesis presents some efficient modulation schemes and available devices for the time being. Besides, a demonstration of ultraviolet-B (UVB) communication link is implemented utilizing quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The demonstration is based on a 294-nm UVB-light-emitting-diode (UVB-LED) with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 9 nm, and according to the measured L-I-V curve, we set the bias voltage as 7V for maximum the ac amplitude and thus get a high signal-noise-ratio (SNR) channel, and the light output power is 190 μW with such bias voltage. Besides, there is a unique silica gel lens on top of the LED to concentrate the beam. A -3-dB bandwidth of 29 MHz was measured and a high-speed near-solar-blind communication link with a data rate of 71 Mbit/s was achieved using 8-QAM-OFDM at perfect alignment, and 23.6 Mbit/s using 2-QAM-OFDM when the angle subtended by the pointing direction of the UVB-LED and photodetector (PD) is 12 degrees, thus establishing a diffuse-line-of-sight (LOS) link. The measured bit-error rate (BER) of 2.8 × 10−4 and 2.4 × 10−4, respectively, are well below the forward error correction (FEC) criterion of 3.8 × 10−3. The demonstrated high data-rate OFDM-based UVB communication link paves the way for realizing high-speed non-line-of-sight free-space optical (FSO) communications.