Key-Specific Structure in Mozart's Music: A Peek into his Creative Process?

Theories of tonal music take for granted that all keys of the same mode (i.e., all major and all minor keys) are employed by composers in essentially the same way; however, newer analytical and cognitive research challenges this view by pointing to aspects of transpositional nonequivalence among the keys. The present study offers possibly the first systematic, data-driven investigation of correlations between the choice of absolute key and structure across a composer's body of works. By performing an extensive corpus-based analysis of music by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–91), we derive 55 prototypes, subsuming phenomena from three independent domains: dynamic-rhetoric gestures that launch orchestral works, digressions to the parallel minor in sonata-allegro movements, and the occurrences of a particular six-note motive across Mozart's complete oeuvre. Ten prototypes display a significant association with a specific key after correction for multiple comparisons, amounting to a statistically significant total. Investigation of key-related musical structure offers fresh insight into Mozart's compositional decisions and the relation between schemata and their instantiations in his works, at the same time suggesting a revised perspective on traditional key characteristics. Mozart's perfect pitch offers one possible explanation for the role of key-related structure in his works; however, we also contemplate other possible explanations

Artificial Shelters And Survival Of Juvenile Caribbean Spiny Lobster Panulirus-Argus - Spatial, Habitat, And Lobster Size Effects

A principal mechanism underlying a production hypothesis that artifical reefs increase environmental carrying capacity and eventually the biomass of reef-associated organisms is that these structures reduce predation on reef residents. We tested this predation mechanism with a series of field experiments at two sites (inner-bay sand-seagrass flat, and outer-bay seagrass bed adjacent to coral reefs) in Bahia de la Ascension, Mexico. We examined survival of two size-classes of juvenile Caribbean spiny lobster Panulirus argus tethered in seagrass beds with and without access to artificial lobster shelters, and at different distances from the shelters. The artificial shelters were concrete structures (casitas) that simulate lobster dens. Large juvenile lobsters (56-65 mm CL) attained a relative size refuge when tethered 60 m away from casitas compared with smaller (46-55 mm CL) lobsters. Conversely, the small lobsters survived better beneath casitas than did large lobsters. Small juveniles also survived better at casitas or 30 m away from casitas than at 15 m or 70 m away. Observations indicated that the daytime predator guild, composed primarily of snappers (family Lutjanidae), seldom foraged more than 60 m from casitas and were typically within 15 m of casitas. There was also a significant positive correlation between predation-induced lobster mortality and numbers of snapper associated with casitas at the inner-bay site. Thus, tethering lobsters 70 m away from casitas appeared adequate to examine survival of lobsters in an environment uninfluenced by daytime predators aggregating to casitas. These results indicate that (1) the relative importance of a lobster-size refuge from predators varies according to shelter availability, and (2) that there is a nonlinear relationship between predation risk and distance from an artifical shelter. Our results demonstrate that casitas increase survival of small juvenile lobsters but reduce survival of larger juveniles. Small casitas scaled according to body size may enhance survival of large juvenile lobsters in nursery habitats where large conspecifics are removed from large casitas

Symmetry breaking perturbations and strange attractors

The asymmetrically forced, damped Duffing oscillator is introduced as a prototype model for analyzing the homoclinic tangle of symmetric dissipative systems with \textit{symmetry breaking} disturbances. Even a slight fixed asymmetry in the perturbation may cause a substantial change in the asymptotic behavior of the system, e.g. transitions from two sided to one sided strange attractors as the other parameters are varied. Moreover, slight asymmetries may cause substantial asymmetries in the relative size of the basins of attraction of the unforced nearly symmetric attracting regions. These changes seems to be associated with homoclinic bifurcations. Numerical evidence indicates that \textit{strange attractors} appear near curves corresponding to specific secondary homoclinic bifurcations. These curves are found using analytical perturbational tools

Modeling Quantitative Value of Habitats for Marine and Estuarine Populations

Coastal habitats (e.g., seagrass beds, shallow mud and sand flats) strongly influence survival, growth, and reproduction of exploited marine fish and invertebrate species. Many of these species have declined over the past decades, coincident with widespread degradation of coastal habitats, such that an urgent need exists to model the quantitative value of coastal habitats to their population dynamics. Demand for habitat considerations will increase as fisheries management contends with habitat issues in stock assessments and management in general moves towards a more ecosystem-based approach. The modeling of habitat function to support fishery species has, to date, been done on a case-by-case basis involving diverse approaches and types of population models, which has made it difficult to generalize about methods for incorporating habitat into population models. In this review, we offer guiding concepts for how habitat effects can be incorporated in population models commonly used to simulate the population dynamics of exploited fish and invertebrate species. We categorize population models based on whether they are static or dynamic representations of population status, and for dynamic, further into unstructured, age/size class structured, and individual-based. We then use examples to illustrate how habitat has been incorporated, implicitly (correlative) and explicitly (mechanistically), into each of these categories. We describe the methods used and provide details on their implementation and utility to facilitate adaptation of the approaches for other species and systems. We anticipate that our review can serve as a stimulus for more widespread use of population models to quantify the value of coastal habitats for exploited species, so that their importance can be accurately realized and to facilitate cross-species and cross-system comparisons. Quantitative evaluation of habitat effects in population dynamics will increasingly be needed for traditional stock assessments, ecosystem-based fisheries management, conservation of at-risk habitats, and recovery of overexploited stocks that rely on critical coastal habitats during their life cycle

Influence of salinity on SAV distribution in a series of intermittently connected coastal lakes

Intermittently closed and open lakes and lagoons (ICOLLs) are coastal lakes that intermittently exchange water with the sea and experience saline intrusions. Understanding effects of seawater exchange on local biota is important to preserve ecosystem functioning and ecological integrity. Coastal dune lakes of northwest Florida are an understudied group of ICOLLs in close geographic proximity and with entrance regimes operating along a frequency continuum. We exploited this natural continuum and corresponding water chemistry gradient to determine effects of water chemistry on resident submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) distributions in these ecosystems. SAV distribution decreased with increases in salinity, but was unaffected by variation in nitrogen, phosphorous, and turbidity. Salinity perturbations corresponding with water exchange with the Gulf of Mexico were associated with reductions in SAV in coastal dune lakes. Potential impacts associated with changes in global climate may increase the frequency of seawater exchange across all coastal dune lakes and potentially reduce the distribution of oligohaline macrophytes among these ecosystems

Key-Specific Structure in Mozart's Music: A Peek into his Creative Process?

Theories of tonal music take for granted that all keys of the same mode (i.e., all major and all minor keys) are employed by composers in essentially the same way; however, newer analytical and cognitive research challenges this view by pointing to aspects of transpositional nonequivalence among the keys. The present study offers possibly the first systematic, data-driven investigation of correlations between the choice of absolute key and structure across a composer's body of works. By performing an extensive corpus-based analysis of music by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–91), we derive 55 prototypes, subsuming phenomena from three independent domains: dynamic-rhetoric gestures that launch orchestral works, digressions to the parallel minor in sonata-allegro movements, and the occurrences of a particular six-note motive across Mozart's complete oeuvre. Ten prototypes display a significant association with a specific key after correction for multiple comparisons, amounting to a statistically significant total. Investigation of key-related musical structure offers fresh insight into Mozart's compositional decisions and the relation between schemata and their instantiations in his works, at the same time suggesting a revised perspective on traditional key characteristics. Mozart's perfect pitch offers one possible explanation for the role of key-related structure in his works; however, we also contemplate other possible explanations

Universal behaviour of entrainment due to coherent structures in turbulent shear flow

I suggest a solution to a persistent mystery in the physics of turbulent shear flows: cumulus clouds rise to towering heights, practically without entraining the ambient medium, while apparently similar turbulent jets in general lose their identity within a small distance through entrainment and mixing. From dynamical systems computations on a model chaotic vortical flow, I show that entrainment and mixing due to coherent structures depend sensitively on the relative speeds of different portions of the flow. A small change in these speeds, effected for example by heating, drastically alters the sizes of the KAM tori and the chaotic mixing region. The entrainment rate and, hence, the lifetime of a turbulent shear flow, shows a universal, non-monotone dependence on the heating.Comment: Preprint replaced in order to add the following comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Plasma level of mannose-binding lectin is associated with the risk of recurrent pregnancy loss but not pregnancy outcome after the diagnosis

STUDY QUESTION: Are low or high plasma mannose-binding lectin (p-MBL) levels associated with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) and the reproductive and perinatal outcomes before and after RPL? SUMMARY ANSWER: The prevalence of low p-MBL levels was significantly higher in RPL patients, while high levels were significantly less prevalent. No association was found between p-MBL level and reproductive and perinatal outcomes before and after RPL. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) is an important component in the innate immune system. Low p-MBL levels have been associated with RPL, while the correlation with high levels has been poorly studied. Adverse perinatal outcomes are generally more frequent among RPL patients, but reports concerning the association between maternal p-MBL levels and perinatal outcomes, including birth weight (BW) and gestational age (GA), are conflicting. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: This study was a combined cross-sectional and cohort study of 267 RPL patients admitted to the RPL Center of Western Denmark between January 2016 and March 2020. RPL patients were followed until birth of a liveborn child or until end of follow-up, March 2021. A sample of 185 healthy female blood donors of reproductive age was used as a MBL reference group. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: All RPL patients had ≥3 consecutive pregnancy losses, a regular menstrual cycle and no known significant chromosomal or uterine malformations. At the first consultation, routine blood samples including p-MBL measurement and detailed obstetrical and perinatal information were collected. p-MBL levels in RPL patients were compared to the MBL reference group. A logistic regression analysis adjusted for relevant confounders assessed the association between low p-MBL levels and an unsuccessful reproductive outcome in RPL patients in first pregnancy after admission. Perinatal outcomes before and after RPL were compared between RPL subgroups according to low (≤500 µg/l), intermediate (501–3000 µg/l) and high (>3000 µg/l) p-MBL levels. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Significantly more RPL patients had low p-MBL levels (prevalence proportion ratio (PPR): 1.79, 95% CI: 1.34–2.38) and fewer had high p-MBL levels (PPR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.40–0.79) compared to the reference group, while the prevalence of intermediate p-MBL level was not different between the groups (PPR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.69–1.08). In the prospective study, low p-MBL level was not a significant risk factor for a pregnancy loss in the first pregnancy after admission after adjustment for age, BMI and smoking. Neither before nor after the RPL diagnosis were maternal p-MBL levels significantly associated with BW or GA. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Only 161 (60.3%) patients had given birth after RPL during the follow-up period, which limited the possibility to detect clear associations between p-MBL levels and perinatal outcomes after RPL. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: In agreement with several previous studies, low p-MBL levels are strongly associated with RPL, while this study for the first time documents that high levels may play a protective role, which suggests a causal relationship. We suggest that larger prospective studies evaluate the association between p-MBL levels and RPL prognosis. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): No external funding was received. We acknowledge the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Aalborg University Hospital for financial support. U.S.K. has reported personal fees from Merck, consulting fees from IBSA Nordic, and a grant from Gedeon Richter, Merck and IBSA Nordic outside of the submitted work. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ID from clinicaltrials.gov is NCT04017754

Global Superdiffusion of Weak Chaos

A class of kicked rotors is introduced, exhibiting accelerator-mode islands (AIs) and {\em global} superdiffusion for {\em arbitrarily weak} chaos. The corresponding standard maps are shown to be exactly related to generalized web maps taken modulo an ``oblique cylinder''. Then, in a case that the web-map orbit structure is periodic in the phase plane, the AIs are essentially {\em normal} web islands folded back into the cylinder. As a consequence, chaotic orbits sticking around the AI boundary are accelerated {\em only} when they traverse tiny {\em ``acceleration spots''}. This leads to chaotic flights having a quasiregular {\em steplike} structure. The global weak-chaos superdiffusion is thus basically different in nature from the strong-chaos one in the usual standard and web maps.Comment: REVTEX, 4 Figures: fig1.jpg, fig2.ps, fig3.ps, fig4.p