The origins of solo cello literature and performance

An investigation into the origins of cello repertory and performance explores territory that is unfamiliar to most musicians. Scholarly research has contributed admirably to our understanding of how the cello began and what factors led to its development, but few sources have brought together what is known about the origins of the instrument and its repertory. This document is an attempt to address this problem after examining many dissertations, music dictionaries, books, articles, and sound recordings. Whenever practical, musical scores were obtained for examination and subsequent performances of these works occurred at Illinois State University and the University of Kansas. Once this research was begun, it was clear that the origin of cello literature and performance was concentrated within a specific region of Italy, involving a reasonably small number of musicians. Although many early works for solo cello remain unpublished and only available at libraries in Italy, those that are readily available demonstrate a virtuosity and sophistication that reflects the musical activity that was occurring in Italy at that time

Ultrasound Based Quantitative Motion Measurement using Speckle Size Estimation

An ultrasound system determines the relative movement in a first direction (F1) of first matter, such as blood flow, and second matter, such as an artery wall, in a subject under study (S). A beam (B1) of ultrasound waves defining a plurality of beam positions (BP1 and BP2) and beam axes (A1 and A2) are moved in scan direction having components parallel to direction F1. First and second blocks of data representing the first and second matter, respectively, are generated. A processor (20) performs an estimation of speckle size on first data to obtain a first result, and performs analysis of the second block of data to obtain a second result. The two results are analyzed to obtain a measure of the relative movement of the first and second matter

Dynamic emotional expressions do not modulate responses to gestures

The tendency to imitate the actions of others appears to be a fundamental aspect of human social interaction. Emotional expressions are a particularly salient form of social stimuli (Vuilleumier & Schwartz, 2001) but their relationship to imitative behaviour is currently unclear. In this paper we report the results of five studies which investigated the effect of a target’s dynamic emotional stimuli on participants’ tendency to respond compatibly to the target’s actions. Experiment one examined the effect of dynamic emotional expressions on the automatic imitation of opening and closing hand movements. Experiment two used the same basic paradigm but added gaze direction as an additional factor. Experiment three investigated the effect of dynamic emotional expressions on compatibility responses to handshakes. Experiment four investigated whether dynamic emotional expressions modulated response to valenced social gestures. Finally, experiment five compared the effects of dynamic and static emotional expressions on participants’ automatic imitation of finger lifting. Across all five studies we reliably elicited a compatibility effect however, none of the studies found a significant modulating effect of emotional expression. This null effect was also supported by a random effects meta-analysis and a series of Bayesian t-tests. Nevertheless, these results must be caveated by the fact that our studies had limited power to detect effect sizes below d = 0.4. We conclude by situating our findings within the literature, suggesting that the effect of emotional expressions on automatic imitation is, at best, minimal

Simple mixing criteria for the growth of negatively buoyant phytoplankton

Phytoplankton population dynamics are controlled by the relative rather than absolute timescales of mixing, growth, and loss processes such as sedimentation, grazing, and so on. Here, the vertical distribution and biomass of phytoplankton populations are quantified by two timescale ratios: the Peclet number Pe the ratio of mixing and sedimentation timescales-and the growth number G the ratio of sedimentation and net growth timescales. Three mixing regimes are defined for phytoplankton and other particles. For Pe greater than or equal to 100, the population is translated linearly down the water column over time and will leave the surface mixing layer completely after sedimentation time 7, For 0.

Obtaining reliable information from minute amounts of RNA using cDNA microarrays

BACKGROUND: High density cDNA microarray technology provides a powerful tool to survey the activity of thousands of genes in normal and diseased cells, which helps us both to understand the molecular basis of the disease and to identify potential targets for therapeutic intervention. The promise of this technology has been hampered by the large amount of biological material required for the experiments (more than 50 μg of total RNA per array). We have modified an amplification procedure that requires only 1 μg of total RNA. Analyses of the results showed that most genes that were detected as expressed or differentially expressed using the regular protocol were also detected using the amplification protocol. In addition, many genes that were undetected or weakly detected using the regular protocol were clearly detected using the amplification protocol. We have carried out a series of confirmation studies by northern blotting, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry assays. RESULTS: Our results showed that most of the new information revealed by the amplification protocol represents real gene activity in the cells. CONCLUSION: We have confirmed a powerful and consistent cDNA microarray procedure that can be used to study minute amounts of biological tissue

Large-alphabet encoding for higher-rate quantum key distribution

The manipulation of high-dimensional degrees of freedom provides new opportunities for more efficient quantum information processing. It has recently been shown that high-dimensional encoded states can provide significant advantages over binary quantum states in applications of quantum computation and quantum communication. In particular, high-dimensional quantum key distribution enables higher secret-key generation rates under practical limitations of detectors or light sources, as well as greater error tolerance. Here, we demonstrate high-dimensional quantum key distribution capabilities both in the laboratory and over a deployed fiber, using photons encoded in a high-dimensional alphabet to increase the secure information yield per detected photon. By adjusting the alphabet size, it is possible to mitigate the effects of receiver bottlenecks and optimize the secret-key rates for different channel losses. This work presents a strategy for achieving higher secret-key rates in receiver-limited scenarios and marks an important step toward high-dimensional quantum communication in deployed fiber networks. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing AgreementU.S. Air Force [FA8721-05-C-0002, FA8702-15-D-0001]; Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative [FA9550-14-1-0052]; Air Force Research Laboratory RITA [FA8750-14-2-0120, N00014-16-C-2069]Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

RMT: R-matrix with time-dependence. Solving the semi-relativistic, time-dependent Schrödinger equation for general, multi-electron atoms and molecules in intense, ultrashort, arbitrarily polarized laser pulses

RMT is a program which solves the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for general, multielectron atoms, ions and molecules interacting with laser light. As such it can be used to model ionization (single-photon, multiphoton and strong-field), recollision (high-harmonic generation, strong-field rescattering) and, more generally, absorption or scattering processes with a full account of the multielectron correlation effects in a time-dependent manner. Calculations can be performed for targets interacting with ultrashort, intense laser pulses of long wavelength and arbitrary polarization. Calculations for atoms can optionally include the Breit–Pauli correction terms for the description of relativistic (in particular, spin–orbit) effects

Factors affecting ammonium uptake in streams - an inter-biome perspective

The Lotic Intersite Nitrogen experiment (LINX) was a coordinated study of the relationships between North American biomes and factors governing ammonium uptake in streams. Our objective was to relate inter-biome variability of ammonium uptake to physical, chemical and biological processes. 2. Data were collected from 11 streams ranging from arctic to tropical and from desert to rainforest. Measurements at each site included physical, hydraulic and chemical characteristics, biological parameters, whole-stream metabolism and ammonium uptake. Ammonium uptake was measured by injection of \u275~-ammonium and downstream measurements of 15N-ammonium concentration. 3. We found no general, statistically significant relationships that explained the variability in ammonium uptake among sites. However, this approach does not account for the multiple mechanisms of ammonium uptake in streams. When we estimated biological demand for inorganic nitrogen based on our measurements of in-stream metabolism, we found good correspondence between calculated nitrogen demand and measured assimilative nitrogen uptake. 4. Nitrogen uptake varied little among sites, reflecting metabolic compensation in streams in a variety of distinctly different biomes (autotrophic production is high where allochthonous inputs are relatively low and vice versa). 5. Both autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism require nitrogen and these biotic processes dominate inorganic nitrogen retention in streams. Factors that affect the relative balance of autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism indirectly control inorganic nitrogen uptake

Investigating Prosodic Accommodation in Clinical Interviews with Depressed Patients

Six in-depth clinical interviews, involving six elderly female patients (aged 60+) and one female psychiatrist, were recorded and analysed for a number of prosodic accommodation variables. Our analysis focused on pitch, speaking time, and vowel-space ratio. Findings indicate that there is a dynamic manifestation of prosodic accommodation over the course of the interactions. There is clear adaptation on the part of the psychiatrist, even going so far as to have a reduced vowel-space ratio, mirroring a reduced vowel-space ratio in the depressed patients. Previous research has found a reduced vowel-space ratio to be associated with psychological distress; however, we suggest that it indicates a high level of adaptation on the part of the psychiatrist and needs to be considered when analysing psychiatric clinical interactions