In the middle of It: music in prison for mothers and babies

There is an established field on the impact of parental imprisonment between parents and children that are separated by imprisonment, and research on music in prisons has often focused on the benefits for adults who engage with music while incarcerated (Henley et al., 2012). However, there is a much smaller discourse on women who are incarcerated and raising their young children with them inside prison, and the musical interactions between mother and child. In this presentation we discuss our research project designed to bring together practitioners and researchers that work across the many areas of this practice including music education, health and penology in online workshops and visits to establishments in Portugal and the U.K. We discuss music programmes designed for delivery to participants in formal educational settings, as well as the everyday musicking that can take place between mothers and their children, for example, in cells, and how this may mitigate the negative impact of imprisonment for women. This research will expand knowledge and understanding of a hidden area of practice, music as a form of communication between mothers and their young children who reside in custody with them, and discuss implications for music in the prison environment.1866 - Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Saltire Facilitation Workshop Awardpublishe

Development of an alternative synthesis of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-L-altruronic acid: an unusual sugar found in the O-specific polysaccharide of Shigella sonnei

A new synthetic route has been explored for the preparation of derivatives of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-L-altruronic acid (L-AltNAcA). This is a rare sugar found together with 2-acetamido-4-amino-2,4-dideoxy-D-fucose(D-FucNAc4N) in the repeating unit of Shigella sonnei. Derivatives are needed inter alia for chemical and spectroscopic calibration standards, and as building blocks for preparing oligomeric subunits of the O-polysaccharide antigen for possible incorporation into a synthetic glycoconjugate vaccine. Two synthetic routes were investigated. The first route successfully repeated a published four step sequence converting diacetone-D-glucose to 1,6-anhydro--L-idopyranose in a 38% yield overall, and a further selective benzylation at O-3. Attempts to discriminate between O-2, O-3 and O-4 using low temperature acylation or alkylation conditions were unsuccessful, but modest selectivity for the 4-benzoate was observed in a Bu₂SnO-mediated benzoylation, although this product could not be easily separated from other mono-benzoates. The second route started from N-acetyl-D-glucosamine which was successfully converted in the first step to 2-methyl-(1,2-dideoxyl-5,6-O-isopropylidene-α-D-glucofurano)-[2,1-d]-2-oxazoline. The oxazoline and dioxolane units could be selectively manipulated in a series of steps to afford 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-3-O-benzyl-6-O-t-butyldimethylsilyl-α-D-glucofuranosyl acetate in a 41% yield over four steps. This is a key synthetic intermediate in which the 5-OH is available for the required inversion step. During this study, an unusual minor side-product, 1,6-anhydro-2-acetamido-O-acetyl-2-deoxy-3-O-benzyl-α-D-glucofuranose, was isolated. While this was also a potentially useful intermediate, having only the 5-OH unprotected, it proved not possible to find conditions for optimizing this product. Inversion of configuration at C-5 in the 6-O-silylated glucofuranose was attempted via the 5-O-triflate and 5-O-mesylate: the triflate formed but was displaced in situ by the solvent pyridine to give an unusual 5-pyridinium derivative, while the mesylate was stable but unreactive towards subsequent SN2 inversion. These outcomes were attributed to the steric congestion imposed by the combination of the 3,4-cis-disubstitution of the furanose ring and the very bulky silyl substituent at O-6. While the goal of preparing L-AltNAcA was not achieved via these approaches, useful insights have been contributed towards the ongoing study

Music education and experience in Scottish prisons

This research presents the first empirical study of music provision in Scottish prisons and explores the potential benefits of music engagement for prisoners, with a focus on young offenders’ experience. The scope of the study begins with an investigation into music provision in prisons throughout Scotland by means of a small-scale survey. This survey showed that despite a lack of documentation, music is currently present in Scottish prisons and has been previously, albeit intermittently. Music provision included a range of activity: learning how to play musical instruments, singing, music theory, song-writing and composition. Subsequently, two music intervention studies were conducted with young offenders at HM Young Offenders Institution Polmont. The first study was a ten-week project with three participant groups: a music group, an art group and a control group. Pre- and post-interviews and measures were used to assess participants’ self-esteem, self-control, behaviour, literacy skills and engagement with education. Numerous difficulties were identified with conducting such research in a prison environment, including the recruitment process and using standard assessment measures. However, results from the small number of men involved showed!an increase in engagement with education for all three groups during the project and a steady continued increase in education engagement for the music group after the project ended. Additionally, the music and art groups showed a small increase in mean scores for self-esteem, positive emotions reported and self-control. The second study examined two music interventions with young offenders as part of the year-long Inspiring Change pilot project. This study used interviews and session review forms with education staff and arts practitioners to document the process of the organisations involved in the planning and implementation of the projects. Focus groups with young offenders were carried out to gather their opinions of the programmes. Participants expressed that they especially appreciated the high level of professionalism of the arts practitioners, working as a group, and being recognised as making an individual contribution towards a final project. In addition to the survey and intervention studies, a Knowledge Exchange workshop was designed for music tutors in Scottish prisons to meet, learn about research on music in prisons, and exchange ideas for best practice. A workbook and afternoon workshop format was investigated in terms of its effectiveness and was found to be beneficial for music tutors in learning more about the research and practice of teaching music in prisons. This thesis contributes to the developing research on the benefits of music provision for prisoners and provides a baseline of music provision in Scottish prisons for further study

Digital Holland

Founded in 2014, Digital Holland is a publicly accessible website that hosts research about the communities that include and surround Hope College. The website, digitalholland.org, was developed by students in the college’s Mellon Scholars Program, a three-year curriculum of digitally-enabled collaborative research and experiential education funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The website features engaging galleries and pages covering a wide variety of topics, highlighting the diversity and historical importance of the Holland community. The site also hosts relevant artifacts including images, audio, and video files shared with permission by the Joint Archives of Holland and the Holland Museum. The project continues to grow as Hope College students, Mellon Scholars, and community members contribute to the site. In the 2016-2017 academic year, Digital Holland underwent both an aesthetic and conceptual shift, redefining our audience and user experience. The new Digital Holland actively promotes community engagement through local partnerships, a joint venture in digital public history. In addition, the site features research projects completed by Hope College students from a variety of disciplines, providing a platform to disseminate exemplary scholarship. Our poster highlights both the process and product of the Digital Holland redesign: our work product as a team and the engaging, community-oriented repository of research. We will feature examples of student research exhibits as well as crowd-sourced articles. Digital Holland can serve as an example for other communities and institutions committed to partnering on digital public scholarship

The common murre (Uria aalge), an auk seabird, reacts to underwater sound

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 147(6), (2020): 4069, doi:10.1121/10.0001400.Marine mammals have fine-tuned hearing abilities, which makes them vulnerable to human-induced sounds from shipping, sonars, pile drivers, and air guns. Many species of marine birds, such as penguins, auks, and cormorants, find their food underwater where light is often limited, suggesting sound detection may play a vital role. Yet, for most marine birds, it is unknown whether they are using, and can thereby be affected by, underwater sound. The authors conducted a series of playback experiments to test whether Alcid seabirds responded to and were disrupted by, underwater sound. Underwater broadband sound bursts and mid-frequency naval 53 C sonar signals were presented to two common murres (Uria aalge) in a quiet pool. The received sound pressure levels varied from 110 to 137 dB re 1 μPa. Both murres showed consistent reactions to sounds of all intensities, as compared to no reactions during control trials. For one of the birds, there was a clearly graded response, so that more responses were found at higher received levels. The authors' findings indicate that common murres may be affected by, and therefore potentially also vulnerable to, underwater noise. The effect of man-made noise on murres, and possibly other marine birds, requires more thorough consideration.This project was funded by the U. S. Navy's Living Marine Resources Program (BAA N39433015R7203) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Birds were loaned from Copenhagen Zoo. Work was conducted under permission from the WHOI Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and animal permit to University of Southern Denmark No. 2300-50120-00003-09 from the Danish Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Statistical analysis was assisted by Simeon Smeele (MPI Konstanz, Germany) and Owen Jones (University of Southern Denmark).2020-12-2

A field study of auditory sensitivity of the Atlantic puffin, Fratercula Arctica

Author Posting. © Company of Biologists, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of Company of Biologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Biology (2020): jeb.228270, doi:10.1242/jeb.228270.Hearing is vital for birds as they rely on acoustic communication with parents, mates, chicks, and conspecifics. Amphibious seabirds face many ecological pressures, having to sense cues in air and underwater. Natural noise conditions have helped shape this sensory modality but anthropogenic noise is increasingly impacting seabirds. Surprisingly little is known about their hearing, despite their imperiled status. Understanding sound sensitivity is vital when we seek to manage manmade noise impacts. We measured the auditory sensitivity of nine wild Atlantic puffins, Fratercula arctica, in a capture-and-release setting in an effort to define their audiogram and compare these data to the hearing of other birds and natural rookery noise. Auditory sensitivity was tested using auditory evoked potential (AEP) methods. Responses were detected from 0.5 to 6 kHz. Mean thresholds were below 40 dB re 20 µPa from 0.75 to 3 kHz indicating that these were the most sensitive auditory frequencies, similar to other seabirds. Thresholds in the ‘middle’ frequency range 1-2.5 kHz were often down to 10-20 dB re 20 µPa. Lowest thresholds were typically at 2.5 kHz. These are the first in-air auditory sensitivity data from multiple wild-caught individuals of a deep-diving Alcid seabird. The audiogram was comparable to other birds of similar size, thereby indicating that puffins have fully functioning aerial hearing despite the constraints of their deep-diving, amphibious lifestyles. There was some variation in thresholds, yet animals generally had sensitive ears suggesting aerial hearing is an important sensory modality for this taxon.This work was supported by the U.S. Navy’s Living Marine Resources Program and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.2021-06-1