From Walking and Talking to Cartwheels and High Cs: An Examination of Practice-Based Laboratory Work into Physio-Vocal Integration.

Following a series of investigative workshops inquiring into the possibilities of the vocal body, artists of Experience Vocal Dance Company trained intensively in an experimental method called the Integrative Performance Practice (IPP), developing an exacting technique that allows the performer the freedom to completely integrate unlimited movement and uncompromised voicing including bel canto singing. This article shares the work of the company through case study, exercises and application to performance propositions examined through the methodology of Transdisciplinarity. The article reflects on how many approaches to voice and movement within the disciplines of acting, singing and dancing can promote disintegration of the physio-vocal instrument. It touches on the implications of integrating the performance instrument through the notion of the psycho-physical and addresses certain inter- and cross-cultural perspectives present in recent discussions about voice and movement. Finally, it lays out exactly how, with the IPP, it was discovered that everything needs to originate from the breath/body; how language and skill sets are best rooted in process-based terms; and that action, be it vocal, physical or emotive, needs to initiate from awareness, reconfiguring the artist as self, working within an active aesthetic. As a key finding, a most precise articulation of centre is described in detail and related to physio-vocal praxis

Learning from experience leading to engagement: for a Europe of religion and belief diversity

The Religious Diversity and Anti-Discrimination Training Program provides a remarkable opportunity for participants of all walks of life to share opinions, concerns and needs of a variety of very real and practical issues such as the role of religion in education, accommodating religious practice in the work place, adapting social services to religio-cultural needs and limitations, engaging minorities in community development, negotiating the use of public space, gender relations, etc. Not only do participants report that the training influences their own roles in local decision-making, but the issues which they raise can be very informative for policy-makers. This Policy Brief, based upon feedback gathered systematically from participants and trainers, provides new insights and ideas to European policy-makers on emerging issues and possible interventions that need to be considered.CEJ

Operational experience with the GEM detector assembly lines for the CMS forward muon upgrade

The CMS Collaboration has been developing large-area triple-gas electron multiplier (GEM) detectors to be installed in the muon Endcap regions of the CMS experiment in 2019 to maintain forward muon trigger and tracking performance at the High-Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); 10 preproduction detectors were built at CERN to commission the first assembly line and the quality controls (QCs). These were installed in the CMS detector in early 2017 and participated in the 2017 LHC run. The collaboration has prepared several additional assembly and QC lines for distributed mass production of 160 GEM detectors at various sites worldwide. In 2017, these additional production sites have optimized construction techniques and QC procedures and validated them against common specifications by constructing additional preproduction detectors. Using the specific experience from one production site as an example, we discuss how the QCs make use of independent hardware and trained personnel to ensure fast and reliable production. Preliminary results on the construction status of CMS GEM detectors are presented with details of the assembly sites involvement

The admission experience survey italian version (I-AES). a factor analytic study on a sample of 156 acute psychiatric in-patients

Coercive treatments are often regarded as an inevitable and yet highly debated feature of psychiatric care. Perceived coercion is often reported by patients involuntarily committed as well as their voluntary counterparts. The Admission Experience Survey (AES) is a reliable tool for measuring perceived coercion in mental hospital admission. We developed the Italian AES (I-AES) through translation back-translation and administered it to 156 acutely hospitalized patients (48% women, 69% voluntarily committed) in two university hospitals in Rome (Policlinico Umberto I, Sant'Andrea Hospital). A principal component analysis (PCA) with equamax rotation was conducted. The I-AES showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90); Guttmann split-half relia- bility coefficient was 0.90. AES total score significantly differed between voluntary and involuntary committed patients (5.08 ± 4.1 vs. 8.1 ± 4.9, p < .05). PCA disclosed a three-factor solution explaining 59.3 of the variance. Some discrepancies were found between the factor structure of the I-AES and the original version. I- AES total score was positively associated with numbers of previous involuntarily hospitalization (r = 0.20, p < .05) and psychiatric symptoms' severity (r = 0.22, p < .02). I-AES and its proposed new factor structure proved to be reliable to assess perceived coercion in mental hospital admission. Consequently, it may represent a helpful instrument for the study and reduction of patients' levels of perceived coercion

How pensions contribute to the premium paid to experienced public school teachers

Many argue that public school systems should stop linking teachers’ salaries so closely to their years of experience. However, the effect of deferred retirement compensation on the premium paid to experienced teachers has, to date, been underappreciated. To shed more light on this issue, we calculate the total compensation earned by teachers in New York City and Philadelphia from both salary and deferred retirement compensation under each system’s currently operating defined-benefit plan. Retirement compensation in both cities is back-loaded, which substantially increases the premium paid to highly experienced teachers. In late-career years, teachers often earn a larger compensation premium from the accrual of pension benefits than from salary. We show that cash-balance retirement plans, which are less back-loaded, would substantially reduce experience premiums without reducing the total compensation for the average entering teacher.http://sites.bu.edu/marcuswinters/files/2017/09/Pensions-and-Experience-Premium.pdfAccepted manuscrip

Experience + Interaction

What do our historic sites and museums offer to visitors? More importantly, what should we strive to offer? Right now, I think many of our historic sites offer two different things: a variety of experiences and access to a wealth of information. Sites like Antietam offer a number of different experiences – from taking a tour over the battleground where so many fought and died, to driving through the battlefield at night seeing thousands of luminaries, each one representing a life. Our historic sites also offer access to knowledge and information – many times through those experiences they offer. Continuing to use Antietam as our guide, this access to information includes things such as a talk with a park ranger who has studied the battle for many years, to a movie that explains the battle complete with maps and reenactments in the park theater. [excerpt

Situating emotional experience

Psychological construction approaches to emotion suggest that emotional experience is situated and dynamic. Fear, for example, is typically studied in a physical danger context (e.g., threatening snake), but in the real world, it often occurs in social contexts, especially those involving social evaluation (e.g., public speaking). Understanding situated emotional experience is critical because adaptive responding is guided by situational context (e.g., inferring the intention of another in a social evaluation situation vs. monitoring the environment in a physical danger situation). In an fMRI study, we assessed situated emotional experience using a newly developed paradigm in which participants vividly imagine different scenarios from a first-person perspective, in this case scenarios involving either social evaluation or physical danger. We hypothesized that distributed neural patterns would underlie immersion in social evaluation and physical danger situations, with shared activity patterns across both situations in multiple sensory modalities and in circuitry involved in integrating salient sensory information, and with unique activity patterns for each situation type in coordinated large-scale networks that reflect situated responding. More specifically, we predicted that networks underlying the social inference and mentalizing involved in responding to a social threat (in regions that make up the “default mode” network) would be reliably more active during social evaluation situations. In contrast, networks underlying the visuospatial attention and action planning involved in responding to a physical threat would be reliably more active during physical danger situations. The results supported these hypotheses. In line with emerging psychological construction approaches, the findings suggest that coordinated brain networks offer a systematic way to interpret the distributed patterns that underlie the diverse situational contexts characterizing emotional life

Own Your Experience

This is a computer-generated message from the Campus Navigation Portal (CNAV), which can be accessed via the URL: Campus Navigation Portal (CNAV). It was sent to you to inform you of a significant event. I received this email when I was a young, nervous First Year student. I took advantage of the clean slate I got from attending a new school and was scrolling through the Digest in search of a new identity. Maybe I could be one of those quirky unicycle riding, juggling, circus kids—it was all up in the air. I wasn’t going to let the past hold me back anyway. Then I read this: You have been added to the group, IRC_Asian_Students You do not have the ability to unsubscribe yourself from this group. [excerpt