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We report a study exploring how the use of deep neural networks with astronomical Big Data may help us find and uncover new insights into underlying phenomena: through our experiments towards unsupervised knowledge extraction from astronomical Big Data we serendipitously found that deep convolutional autoencoders tend to reject telluric lines in stellar spectra. With further experiments, we found that only when the spectra are in the barycentric frame does the network automatically identify the statistical independence between two components, stellar versus telluric, and rejects the latter. We exploit this finding and turn it into a proof-of-concept method for removal of the telluric lines from stellar spectra in a fully unsupervised fashion: we increase the interobservation entropy of telluric absorption lines by imposing a random, virtual radial velocity to the observed spectrum. This technique results in a non-standard form of 'whitening' in the atmospheric components of the spectrum, decorrelating them across multiple observations. We process more than 250 000 spectra from the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search and with qualitative and quantitative evaluations against a data base of known telluric lines, show that most of the telluric lines are successfully rejected. Our approach, 'Stellar Karaoke', has zero need for prior knowledge about parameters such as observation time, location, or the distribution of atmospheric molecules and processes each spectrum in milliseconds. We also train and test on Sloan Digital Sky Survey and see a significant performance drop due to the low resolution. We discuss directions for developing tools on top of the introduced method in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although music singing and sharing is a most common cultural activity, users are not allowed to instantly share their own songs due to fixed streaming and listening services on the music service platforms. In order to deal with instant singing and listening together with other users, this research was conducted to propose a mobile social karaoke system that supports group creation and music sharing via smartphones. The proposed karaoke system consists of a social music cloud that provides impromptu mobile singing and sharing services on the user's devices. The social music cloud manages a group of users and supports data streaming and message sharing among the users' devices. The users' devices enable users to utilize karaoke services based on touch and voice-based natural interfaces in consideration of mobile specifications. After testing the system's usability and stability, the results illustrated that the voice-based interface was effective in controlling and using the service according to the devices' mobility and availability. In addition, when karaoke services are utilized in small groups, music transmission/reception is possible without being affected by the number of users. This study has three implications: first, it presented an important possibility for the creation of more active digital cultural spaces and changing mobile life by providing users with a recreation function; second, it provides convenient touch and voice UI for mobile users; and, third, it improves performance and management through its distributed processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article articulates an 'anti-reformist' stance toward the reform of international investment law and dispute settlement. The mainstream debates over the future of investment law are generally 'reformist,' in the sense that they seek to maintain the system of special legal rights afforded to a discrete class of persons defined as 'investors'. This system of special rights amplifies investors' power vis-à-vis other constituencies and is premised on flimsy assumptions about the investor's vulnerability that are not borne out either in theory or in practice. Drawing on recent work in other fields, this article sketches an anti-reformist approach that asserts these fundamental challenges, even as it remains engaged in contemporary reform debates. It also discusses the near-term implications of this approach for procedural and substantive reform of investment treaties, as well as the long-range goals of an anti-reformist stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the social, technological and legal factors that, from the 1960s onward, transformed karaoke into a televisual medium. The author shows how the incorporation of the television screen into karaoke performance reveals a cross-section of postwar Japanese anxieties surrounding gendered leisure practices, licensing and storage of emerging media formats, and the regulation of the body within urban space. She further argues that the resultant ambient aesthetics of karaoke background videos encode a particular historical moment in the 1980s, in which karaoke emerged as a leisure activity involving the visually orchestrated somatic reconstitution of ambient space under pressure within Japan's increasingly mediatized urban environment. The article ultimately suggests that resituating karaoke within television and media studies allows for a more resonant understanding of it as an embodied practice in which a visually driven nostalgia for ambient media alters, if not outright displaces, the affective connection to the audio it accompanies. The televisually mediated space of karaoke performance, then, reframes the nostalgia typically associated with both television and popular audio as, instead, nostalgia for the way ambient media allows for renegotiations of the relationship between the body and its surroundings under the attendant pressures of late capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, an outcome of practice-based artistic research, concerns singing as a therapeutic performance and conveyor of knowledge. It arises from my project fugitive radio, which responds to the uptake of radio in contemporary art by pursuing experimental modes of "performance-radio." Following a voicing event in Helsinki, a colleague suggested that singing had been "somehow civilized out of us", prompting me to investigate connections between singing, therapy, and knowledge and in relation to the global phenomenon of karaoke singing. My considerations are framed by ideas from neuroscientist and popular writer Daniel J. Levitin, who argues that the human brain evolved with song, and ethnomusicologist and voice therapist Anne Tarvainen, who encourages her clients to pursue unconventional methods of singing so as to experience their bodies in relation to power. Singing forms discussed include samba and música popular brasileira, Sámi yoiking, Estonia's Singing Revolution, and Aboriginal "Songlines", the latter being exemplar of how knowledge is kept in song. Thus, my text turns to consider how (Western) knowledge is subordinate to discourse and how artistic research fits into this schema with reference to the writing of curator and theorist Simon Sheikh. Its final movement follows the "ontological turn" in anthropology and philosophy to addresses how different practices of "worlding" arise as struggles in contemporary art and artistic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the home entertainment system, karaoke is a popular leisure facility in our daily life. Via the karaoke system, users can sing along with the lyrics based on the recordings of pop songs. However, a lot of karaoke systems can display lyrics semi-automatically. Traditionally, some lyrics are input manually and need to be synchronized with the tonal music stepwise, which is time-consuming. One of the famous musical phrase segmentation theories is a generative theory of tonal music, through which we have implemented a karaoke system in C# programming language. This intelligent system can automatically segment music phrases and use a high-level fuzzy Petri net model to calibrate the lyrics in pop songs. Fifty Chinese pop songs are selected to evaluate its performance. The experimental results have shown that the average calibration precision value (92.78%) and recall value (90.46%) are highly acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying predictors of meaning in life (MIL) among older adults is important to promote their well-being. Therefore, to provide practitioners with information to help older adults enhance well-being, we examined a mediated model in which singing commitment is predictive of flow, and flow is predictive of MIL. A total of 305 older adults participated in our study. Participants completed an in-person survey including singing commitment, flow, and MIL scales. We analysed data using structural equation modelling. Results indicated that high levels of singing commitment predicted high levels of flow, and high levels of flow predicted high levels of MIL. The relationship between singing commitment and MIL was fully mediated by flow, and there were no residual direct effects. We discuss implications of these results in terms of increasing meaning in later life, in particular, facilitating flow through singing commitment among older adults who do not have high levels of singing skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Singing in an indoor space may increase the risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. We conducted a case-control study of karaoke-related coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks to reveal the risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection among individuals who participate in karaoke. Methods Cases were defined as people who enjoyed karaoke at a bar and who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction between 16 May and 3 July 2020. Controls were defined as people who enjoyed karaoke at the same bar during the same period as the cases and tested negative. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. ORs of key variables adjusted for each other were also estimated (aOR). Results We identified 81 cases, the majority of whom were active elderly individuals (median age, 75 years). Six cases died (case fatality ratio, 7%). Among the cases, 68 (84%) were guests, 18 of whom had visited ≧2 karaoke bars. A genome analysis conducted in 30 cases showed 6 types of isolates within 4 single-nucleotide variation difference. The case-control study revealed that singing (aOR, 11.0 [95% CI, 1.2–101.0]), not wearing a mask (aOR, 3.7 [95% CI, 1.2–11.2]), and additional hour spent per visit (aOR, 1.7 [95% CI, 1.1–2.7]) were associated with COVID-19 infection. Conclusions A karaoke-related COVID-19 outbreak that occurred in 2 different cities was confirmed by the results of genome analysis. Singing in less-ventilated, indoor and crowded environments increases the risk of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection. Wearing a mask and staying for only a short time can reduce the risk of infection during karaoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the dynamics of online karaoke virtual gift sending helps maximize its utility for all participants, including viewers, broadcasters, and platforms. However, extant paid gift-sending studies lack an integrated theoretical explanation of its incentives as well as practical implications that can facilitate the quantifiable implementation of service improvement. This study has successfully uncovered the motivation of paid gift-sending in an online karaoke context from a social exchange perspective using social exchange theory. By observing the activities of 11,640 online karaoke users over one year, it was discovered that their gift-sending behaviors adhere to the patterns of more-follower-more-gift-sending and receive-more-send-more. Moreover, such patterns are more pronounced for collaborative users and are accentuated over time. Theoretically, this study extends the scope of social commerce studies from B2C to C2C scenarios with more complicated interpersonal dynamics. Meanwhile, managers are advised to encourage following, stimulate collaboration, inject additional virtual gifts into the "market", and retain their customers to generate long-term profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Leisure cognitive activities are suggested to reduce the risk of dementia. Herein, we aimed to investigate the prospective association between engaging in different musical activities and the risk of dementia among Japanese older adults. Methods: Longitudinal data of 52 601 participants aged ≥65 years from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study were analyzed. Musical activities in the form of playing a musical instrument, practicing karaoke and choir or folk singing were assessed using a questionnaire, while dementia was diagnosed using the standardized dementia scale of the long‐term care insurance system. The Cox regression was used to obtain the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for incident dementia according to engagement in musical activities. Results: Compared with engaging in no musical activities at all, the hazard ratios engaging in one and more than one musical activity, after 5.8 years of a median follow‐up period, were 0.94 (95% CI 0.82–1.07) and 0.59 (95% CI 0.32–1.10) in men versus 0.79 (95% CI 0.69–0.90) and 0.89 (95% CI 0.63–1.26) in women, respectively. Playing a musical instrument and practicing karaoke, compared with no musical activities at all, were associated with a faintly decreased risk of dementia in men and a significantly decreased risk of dementia in women; hazard ratios 0.70 (95% CI 0.45–1.02) and 0.90 (95% CI 0.79, 1.04) in men versus 0.75 (95% CI 0.58–0.98) and 0.77 (95% CI 0.68–0.89) in women, respectively. Conclusion: Engaging in musical activities, especially playing a musical instrument and practicing karaoke, was associated with a reduced risk of dementia among Japanese older women. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2021; 21: 451–457. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ontario Dentist article titled "HPDA Karaoke for Charity Event" reports on the Hatton Peel Dental Association's karaoke event held in support of Food Banks Mississauga. The event was attended by HPDA members and their families, who raised over $1,500 for the charity. The HPDA has also formed a team called Hunger Warriors to campaign for the charity and has been collecting non-perishable food items for donation. The article highlights the success of the event and expresses gratitude to all participants and volunteers. [Extracted from the article]