Shlomo Dubnov is a computer scientist by training (his Ph.D. is from Hebrew University), but his primary appointment at UC San Diego is in the Department of Music. But Dubnov is also an affiliated faculty member in the Computer Science and Engineering department, and his latest work has just been published by the German publishing company Springer as part of its SpringerBriefs in Computer Science series. Titled "Cross-Cultural Multimedia Computing", the book carries the subtitle, "Semantic and Aesthetic Modeling",
Dubnov and his two co-authors -- MITRE Corp. cognitive scientist Kevin Burns and Japanese electrical engineer Yasushi Kiyoki -- explore ongoing research on computational modeling of visual, musical and textual content, which are described in terms of identifying and mapping their semantic representations across different cultures. They also recap experimental studies attempting to characterize preferences for complexity in abstract, classical and traditional art and music across samples of Western and Far Eastern cultures. The experiments illustrate how aesthetics can be computed in terms of semantic and information measures, highlighting commonalities and uncovering differences in aesthetic preferences across individuals and cultures (highlighted in the varying backgrounds of the three authors).
Dubnov's work on computational modeling of style and computer audition has led to development of several computer music programs for improvisation and machine understanding of music. He currently directs the Center for Research in Entertainment and Learning (CREL) in Calit2's Qualcomm Institute, and serves as a lead editor of the journal ACM Computers in Entertainment.
The softcover issue is now on sale, but Springer says that an eBook version of the title will be available soon (ISBN 978-3-319-42873-4). Professor Dubnov previously teamed with co-author Kevin Burns on an earlier Springer book from its computer science series on database management and information retrieval: they co-edited (with Shlomo Argamon) "The Structure of Style: Algorithmic Approaches to Understanding Manner and Meaning," published in 2010.
For more information or to purchase "Cross-Cultural Multimedia Computing", follow this link.