An experimental study comparing different user interfaces for a virtual drum is reported. Virtual here means that the drum is not a physical object. 16 subjects played the drum on five different interfaces and two metronome patterns trying to match their hits to the metronome clicks. Temporal accuracy of the playing was evaluated. The subjects also rated the interfaces subjectively. The results...

The level statistics of pseudointegrable fractal drums is studied numerically using periodic orbit theory. We find that the spectral rigidity ∆3(L), which is a measure for the correlations between the eigenvalues, decreases to quite small values (as compared to systems with only small boundary roughness), thereby approaching the behavior of chaotic systems. The periodic orbit results are in goo...

the separation of saffron stigmas from fresh flowers is the most important and the most difficult stage of saffron harvesting. saffron production costs are high because this harvesting stage is done by hand and is very time-consuming. one way of preserving the saffron flower is to dry it. the separating of the stigma from dried saffron flowers can then be done at an appropriate time. this study...

Bar-headed goose (Anser indicus), a species endemic to Asia, has become one of the most popular species in recent years for rare bird breeding industries in several provinces of China. There has been no information on the gut metagenome configuration in both wild and artificially reared Bar-headed geese, even though the importance of gut microbiome in vertebrate nutrient and energy metabolism, ...

The pale-headed brush-finch (Atlapetes pallidiceps) is threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, but very little is known about its ecological requirements. We used multiple logistic regression to study habitat selection of this species at landscape, territory, and nest site scales in order to make recommendations about effective management. Habitat selection by the sympatric stripe-heade...

The type specimens of the bee genus Hylaeus Fabricius, 1793 described by Ferdinand Morawitz from Asia and deposited in the Zoological Museum of the Moscow State University and in the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, are critically reviewed. Precise information with illustrations of types for 39 taxa is provided. New synonymy is established for Hylaeus incongruus...

This paper describes a real-time beat tracking system that recognizes a hierarchical beat structure comprising the quarter-note, half-note, and measure levels in real-world audio signals sampled from popular-music compact discs. Most previous beat-tracking systems dealt with MIDI signals and had difficulty in processing, in real time, audio signals containing sounds of various instruments and i...