Indigenous Cosmopolitanisms of Music in Sámi Theatre

Which kinds of Sáminess are expressed and engaged with music in Sámi theatre? Through descriptions of the kinds of musical genres and sounds presented, the article argue that the music of Sámi theatre can typically be described as cosmopolitan. As the musical expressions and engagements convey what is Sáminess, they present cosmopolitan versions of Sáminess. The author interprets performance moments as presenting types of Indigenous cosmopolitanism, in other words, Indigenous cosmopolitanisms. The article approaches music as musicking, which refers to all of the social interactions that go into creating a musical experience. Because this is theatre, this includes the social processes of staging other theatre values that relate with the music during theatrical performances. Other theatre values include costumes, set design, props, lighting, sound effects beyond music and movement such as dance and blocking. Overall, the productions perform a dynamic and fluid Sáminess that incorporates sounds, sights and movements from around the world, while often being “rooted” in what it is to be Sámi today and historically. Although most productions include identifiably Sámi music genres such as joik, it is worthwhile to note that some don’t. In these productions, the author identifies specific varieties of cosmopolitanism, such as vernacular cosmopolitanism, different forms of rooted cosmopolitanism and pan-Indigenous cosmopolitanism. The article examines case studies from Sámi theatre companies in Norway, Beaivváš Sámi Našunálateáhter and Åarjelhsaemien Teatere. The cases, among other productions, are the joik operas The Frost Haired and the Dream Seer and Allaq; the dance theatre productions Eatnemen Vuelieh and Gïeje; and the stage plays Silbajárviand Almmiriika.

The development of linguistic stimuli for the Swedish Situated Phoneme test

The speech perception ability of people with hearing loss can be efficiently measured using phonemic-level scoring. We aimed to develop linguistic stimuli suitable for a closed-set phonemic discrimination test in the Swedish language called the Situated Phoneme (SiP) test. The SiP test stimuli that we developed consisted of real monosyllabic words with minimal phonemic contrast, realised by phonetically similar phones. The lexical and sublexical factors of word frequency, phonological neighbourhood density, phonotactic probability, and orthographic transparency were similar between all contrasting words. Each test word was recorded five times by two different speakers, including one male and one female. The accuracy of the test-word recordings was evaluated by 28 normal-hearing subjects in a listening experiment with a silent background using a closed-set design. With a few exceptions, all test words could be correctly discriminated. We discuss the results in terms of content- and construct-validity implications for the Swedish SiP test.

Investigating the impact of development and internal validation design when training prognostic models using a retrospective cohort in big US observational healthcare data

ObjectiveThe internal validation of prediction models aims to quantify the generalisability of a model. We aim to determine the impact, if any, that the choice of development and internal validation design has on the internal performance bias and model generalisability in big data (n~500 000).DesignRetrospective cohort.SettingPrimary and secondary care; three US claims databases.Participants1 200 769 patients pharmaceutically treated for their first occurrence of depression.MethodsWe investigated the impact of the development/validation design across 21 real-world prediction questions. Model discrimination and calibration were assessed. We trained LASSO logistic regression models using US claims data and internally validated the models using eight different designs: ‘no test/validation set’, ‘test/validation set’ and cross validation with 3-fold, 5-fold or 10-fold with and without a test set. We then externally validated each model in two new US claims databases. We estimated the internal validation bias per design by empirically comparing the differences between the estimated internal performance and external performance.ResultsThe differences between the models’ internal estimated performances and external performances were largest for the ‘no test/validation set’ design. This indicates even with large data the ‘no test/validation set’ design causes models to overfit. The seven alternative designs included some validation process to select the hyperparameters and a fair testing process to estimate internal performance. These designs had similar internal performance estimates and performed similarly when externally validated in the two external databases.ConclusionsEven with big data, it is important to use some validation process to select the optimal hyperparameters and fairly assess internal validation using a test set or cross-validation.

Terry Gilliam

With a directorial career spanning over forty years, Terry Gilliam (b. 1940) remains rooted in the sensibilities of his early work in animation. Born in Minnesota and raised in the Los Angeles area, Gilliam, sometimes classified as a British filmmaker, has lived in England since the 1960s, renouncing his US citizenship in 2006. As the resident animator of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–1974), Gilliam created surreal and absurd vignettes from cutout images that complemented the live sketches. After partnering with fellow Python Terry Jones in directing Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Gilliam struck off on his own with Jabberwocky (1977). Many films followed in which one or more members of Monty Python appeared as actors under his direction. Though Gilliam’s works ostensibly cover diverse subjects—bureaucracy, virus outbreaks, and the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, to name only a few—all engage with questions of the power and problems of the imagination in the face of an often-grim or oppressive reality. The overall look of a Gilliam film is unmistakable as well, with off-kilter shots meant to disorient the viewer and crowded mises-en-scène. His use of wide-angle lenses is so extensive that the 14-millimeter lens has been nicknamed “the Gilliam.” Deeply involved not only in camerawork but in many other aspects of production such as costuming, set design, and scriptwriting, Gilliam would seem to fit the definition of an auteur. However, in numerous interviews, Gilliam resists that label, stressing his collaborative approach and openness to suggestions. Indeed, the process of making and distributing his films has sometimes garnered as much, if not more, attention than the films themselves. Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Brothers Grimm (2005), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2014) all faced disruptions and setbacks of various kinds. No production was bedeviled so long and in so many ways as The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), taking nearly thirty years to reach the screen. Frequently identifying with the main characters of his films in progress, Gilliam perhaps most resembles Don Quixote in his unstinting commitment to his vision, whether commercially successful or not, whether brilliant or baffling to critics or audiences.

Sequence Set Design for a New LFM-PC Hybrid Modulated Radar Signal

In this paper we study the code design problem of a new form of linear frequency modulation phase-coded (LFM-PC) hybrid signal with wide Doppler tolerance based on a range-Doppler discrete ambiguity function (DAF) to get better detection performance and anti-jamming capability. The DAF of the LFM-PC inter pulse signal is derived within the Doppler tolerance. Two optimization models are established. One is single pulse sequence design (SSD) for Doppler tolerance extension based on minimum integral normalized sidelobe level (INSL); the other is multi pulse sequence set design (MSSD) for signal orthogonality based on the minimizing sum of the normalized DAF sidelobe (NDAFSL) and discrete cross ambiguity function (DCAF). Two low-complexity signal optimization methods based on alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) are proposed, respectively. The simulation results show that the optimized signals have either wide Doppler tolerance or good orthogonal performance, and the optimization methods (i.e., SSD-ADMM and MSSD-ADMM) have the characteristics of fast convergence speed and low operation amount.