From Sound Synthesis to Sound Retrieval and Back
Google engEDU
55 min – Jul 10, 2007

Google Tech Talks
July 10, 2007

ABSTRACT

In this talk I will go over the technological and conceptual ties that exist between some of the current trends in sound generation for music and multimedia applications and the techniques for content based sound retrieval. This is because quite a number of the techniques being worked on for sound retrieval come from the field of sound synthesis and at the same time the new developments in retrieval are being applied and are inspiring new directions in the development of sound generation systems. To explain all this I will use examples from the research carried out in the Music Technology Group at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, Spain. In particular I will go over our research on spectral based concatenative synthesis and our work on sound and music retrieval. Also I will link it with the online community that we have developed for sharing sound files, Freesound http://freesound.iua.upf.edu, showing the potential that this open and shared resource has for the research on sound retrieval and for experimenting with new sound generation systems.

Speaker: Xavier Serra
Director of the Music Technology Group (http://mtg.upf.edu)
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona Read the rest of this entry »

New generation of math software from Maplesoft
Google engEDU
52 min – Sep 11, 2007

Google Tech Talks
September 11, 2007

ABSTRACT

The name Maple is synonymous with doing complex math on computers. Best known for its symbolic or algebraic computation abilities, Maple is one of the most important tools for the modern applied mathematician and scientist. Many of you are likely familiar with Maple from college but you’ve probably not kept up to date with latest developments. This presentation will present some of the latest product developments from Maplesoft. Topics include

- developments in high performance numerical computation
- recent advances in symbolic computing
- new Maple libraries including graph theory, statistics, optimization, polynomial operations, and more
- parallel and grid computing
- knowledge capture for mathematical documents
- the Maple programming language and application development
- overview of new add-on products including global optimization, and modeling and simulation

The presenter will be Mohamed Bendame, a senior engineer from Maplesoft. The presentations will include an open Q&A session. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Fit: An Open-Source Testing Framework
Google engEDU
54 min – Feb 9, 2006

Google TechTalks
February 9, 2006

Rick Mugridge

Rick Mugridge is the lead author of the first book on storytests: "Fit for Developing Software". He has developed and is evolving FitLibrary to better support storytest driven development. He is a leading thinker and inventor in this area, and consults and coaches internationally in storytesting, executable specifications, and agile software development.

ABSTRACT
We raise four software development issues and show how Fit can be used to address them. The issues are as follows: (1) How can we improve test coverage on a legacy system without discouraging its evolution? (2) Now that we have a successful product with a great UI, how do we provide program access, such as through SOAP? (3) How can QA be involved earlier and more effectively? (4) How can product managers better utilise their expertise?

Each of these issues can be addressed with Fit storytests. Storytests satisfy the demands of both requirements and quality assurance, in an amalgam that initially looks weird and counter-intuitive. Storytests are concrete examples that express important things about the business domain and about the system. They are matched and generalised in the code, using the same "ubiquitous language". Week by week, as thinking and understanding grow and change, the storytests grow and change. And so the code evolves. Read the rest of this entry »

Return to the RNAi World: Rethinking Gene Expression and Evolution
Google engEDU
1 hr 9 min – Apr 9, 2007

Google Tech Talks
April 9, 2007

ABSTRACT

While investigating the genetic workings of the microscopic worm, C. elegans, Mello and colleague Andrew Fire, PhD, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, discovered RNAi, a natural but previously unrecognized process by which a certain form of RNA can be manipulated to silence—or interfere with—the expression of a selected gene. The discovery, published in the journal Nature in 1998, has had two extraordinary impacts on biological science. One is as a research tool: RNAi is now the state-of-the-art method by which scientists can knock out the expression of specific genes in cells, to thus define the biological functions of those genes. But just as important has been the finding that RNA interference is a normal process of genetic regulation that takes place during development. Thus, RNAi has provided not only a powerful research tool for experimentally knocking out the expression of specific genes, but has opened a completely new and totally unanticipated window on developmental gene regulation. RNAi is now showing promising in the clinic as a new class of gene-specific therapeutics.

The speaker, Craig Mello, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »

High End Computing and Scientific Visualization at NASA
Google engEDU
1 hr 2 min – Jan 25, 2006

Google TechTalks
January 25, 2006

Dr. Rupak Biswas and Dr. Chris Henze

Dr. Rupak Biswas is currently the Acting Chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at NASA Ames Research Center. Dr. Biswas received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1991 and has been at NASA ever since.

Chris Henze is the lead of the Visualization Group in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center, in which capacity he supervises research and development activities in data analysis and visualization. Dr. Henze received his Ph.D. in computational biology from the University of Arizona in 1993. Read the rest of this entry »