Music Teacher Education at a Liberal Arts College

In 2012, a committee at a small Midwestern liberal arts college, Lake Forest College, embarked on a journey to create a music education teacher licensure major. Drawing from narrative inquiry, this article reports how the dean of faculty, education department chair, music department chair, and assistant professor of music/music education coordinator collaborated on a curricular creation. Findings from this process included (a) the created music education major, (b) each participant’s rationale for wanting the new music education major, (c) valued components of the music education major, and (d) unique elements of a music education major at a liberal arts college. Implications from this experience could be valuable for music education programs at small liberal arts colleges, those involved in university/school partnerships such as professional development schools, and those looking to advocate for their music education programs across campus

Magnetic properties of Gd_xY_{1-x}Fe_2Zn_{20}: dilute, large, S\textbf {S} moments in a nearly ferromagnetic Fermi liquid

Single crystals of the dilute, rare earth bearing, pseudo-ternary series, Gd_xY_{1-x}Fe_2Zn_{20} were grown out of Zn-rich solution. Measurements of magnetization, resistivity and heat capacity on Gd_xY_{1-x}Fe_2Zn_{20} samples reveal ferromagnetic order of Gd^{3+} local moments across virtually the whole series ($x \geq 0.02$). The magnetic properties of this series, including the ferromagnetic ordering, the reduced saturated moments at base temperature, the deviation of the susceptibilities from Curie-Weiss law and the anomalies in the resistivity, are understood within the frame work of dilute, $\textbf {S}$ moments (Gd^{3+}) embedded in a nearly ferromagnetic Fermi liquid (YFe_2Zn_{20}). The s-d model is employed to further explain the variation of $T_{\mathrm{C}}$ with x as well as the temperature dependences of of the susceptibilities

Supercell technique for total-energy calculations of finite charged and polar systems

We study the behavior of total-energy supercell calculations for dipolar molecules and charged clusters. Using a cutoff Coulomb interaction within the framework of a plane-wave basis set formalism, with all other aspects of the method (pseudopotentials, basis set, exchange-correlation functional) unchanged, we are able to assess directly the interaction effects present in the supercell technique. We find that the supercell method gives structures and energies in almost total agreement with the results of calculations for finite systems, even for molecules with large dipole moments. We also show that the performance of finite-grid calculations can be improved by allowing a degree of aliasing in the Hartree energy, and by using a reciprocal space definition of the cutoff Coulomb interaction

Large Scale Electronic Structure Calculations with Multigrid Acceleration

We have developed a set of techniques for performing large scale ab initio calculations using multigrid accelerations and a real-space grid as a basis. The multigrid methods permit efficient calculations on ill-conditioned systems with long length scales or high energy cutoffs. The technique has been applied to systems containing up to 100 atoms, including a highly elongated diamond cell, an isolated C$_{60}$ molecule, and a 32-atom cell of GaN with the Ga d-states in valence. The method is well suited for implementation on both vector and massively parallel architectures.Comment: 4 pages, 1 postscript figur

First-Principles Studies of Hydrogenated Si(111)--7×\times7

The relaxed geometries and electronic properties of the hydrogenated phases of the Si(111)-7$\times$7 surface are studied using first-principles molecular dynamics. A monohydride phase, with one H per dangling bond adsorbed on the bare surface is found to be energetically favorable. Another phase where 43 hydrogens saturate the dangling bonds created by the removal of the adatoms from the clean surface is found to be nearly equivalent energetically. Experimental STM and differential reflectance characteristics of the hydrogenated surfaces agree well with the calculated features.Comment: REVTEX manuscript with 3 postscript figures, all included in uu file. Also available at http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~ulloa/ulloa.htm

An Effective-Medium Tight-Binding Model for Silicon

A new method for calculating the total energy of Si systems is presented. The method is based on the effective-medium theory concept of a reference system. Instead of calculating the energy of an atom in the system of interest a reference system is introduced where the local surroundings are similar. The energy of the reference system can be calculated selfconsistently once and for all while the energy difference to the reference system can be obtained approximately. We propose to calculate it using the tight-binding LMTO scheme with the Atomic-Sphere Approximation(ASA) for the potential, and by using the ASA with charge-conserving spheres we are able to treat open system without introducing empty spheres. All steps in the calculational method is {\em ab initio} in the sense that all quantities entering are calculated from first principles without any fitting to experiment. A complete and detailed description of the method is given together with test calculations of the energies of phonons, elastic constants, different structures, surfaces and surface reconstructions. We compare the results to calculations using an empirical tight-binding scheme.Comment: 26 pages (11 uuencoded Postscript figures appended), LaTeX, CAMP-090594-

The flight feather moult pattern of the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus).

Moult is an extremely time-consuming and energy-demanding task for large birds. In addition, there is a trade-off between the time devoted to moulting and that invested in other activities such as breeding and/or territory exploration. Moreover, it takes a long time to grow a long feather in large birds, and large birds that need to fly while moulting cannot tolerate large gaps in the wing, but only one or two simultaneously growing feathers. As a consequence, large birds take several years to complete a full moult cycle, and they resume the moult process during suboptimal conditions. A clear example of this pattern is the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), which needs 2-3 years for changing all flight feathers. Here we describe the sequence, extent, and timing of moult of 124 Bearded Vultures in detail for the first time. We found that extent and timing of flight feather moult was different between age classes. Subadults (from 3rd to 5th calendar year) started moult, on average, in early March, whereas adults only started moult, on average, in late April, possibly due to breeding requirements. Second calendar year individuals delayed onset of moult until the middle of May. In general, the moult lasted until November, and although adults started to moult later than subadults, they moulted more feathers. Subadults needed 3 years for moulting all flight feathers, whereas adults normally completed it in 2 years

Variation of the magnetic ordering in GdT2_2Zn20_{20} (T= Fe, Ru, Os, Co, Rh and Ir) and its correlation with the electronic structure of isostructural YT2_2Zn20_{20}

Magnetization, resistivity and specific heat measurements were performed on the solution-grown, single crystals of six GdT$_2$Zn$_{20}$ (T = Fe, Ru, Os, Co, Rh and Ir) compounds, as well as their Y analogues. For the Gd compounds, the Fe column members manifest a ferromagnetic (FM) ground state (with an enhanced Curie temperature, $T_{\mathrm{C}}$, for T = Fe and Ru), whereas the Co column members manifest an antiferromagnetic (AFM) ground state. Thermodynamic measurements on the YT$_2$Zn$_{20}$ revealed that the enhanced $T_{\mathrm{C}}$ for GdFe$_2$Zn$_{20}$ and GdRu$_2$Zn$_{20}$ can be understood within the framework of Heisenberg moments embedded in a nearly ferromagnetic Fermi liquid. Furthermore, electronic structure calculations indicate that this significant enhancement is due to large, close to the Stoner FM criterion, transition metal partial density of states at Fermi level, whereas the change of FM to AFM ordering is associated with filling of electronic states with two additional electrons per formula unit. The degree of this sensitivity is addressed by the studies of the pseudo-ternary compounds Gd(Fe$_x$Co$_{1-x}$)$_2$Zn$_{20}$ and Y(Fe$_x$Co$_{1-x}$)$_2$Zn$_{20}$ which clearly reveal the effect of 3d band filling on their magnetic properties.Comment: 32 pages, 28 figure

Antioxidant Machinery Differs between Melanic and Light Nestlings of Two Polymorphic Raptors

Colour polymorphism results from the expression of multiallelic genes generating phenotypes with very distinctive colourations. Most colour polymorphisms are due to differences in the type or amount of melanins present in each morph, which also differ in several behavioural, morphometric and physiological attributes. Melanin-based colour morphs could also differ in the levels of glutathione (GSH), a key intracellular antioxidant, because of the role of this molecule in melanogenesis. As GSH inhibits the synthesis of eumelanin (i.e. the darkest melanin form), individuals of darker morphs are expected to have lower GSH levels than those of lighter morphs. We tested this prediction in nestlings of two polymorphic raptors, the booted eagle Hieraaetus pennatus and the Eleonora's falcon Falco eleonorae, both of which occur in two morphs differing in the extent of eumelanic plumage. As expected, melanic booted eagle nestlings had lower blood GSH levels than light morph eagle nestlings. In the Eleonora's falcon, however, melanic nestlings only had lower GSH levels after controlling for the levels of other antioxidants. We also found that melanic female eagle nestlings had higher levels of antioxidants other than GSH and were in better body condition than light female eagle nestlings. These findings suggest an adaptive response of melanic nestlings to compensate for reduced GSH levels. Nevertheless, these associations were not found in falcons, indicating species-specific particularities in antioxidant machinery. Our results are consistent with previous work revealing the importance of GSH on the expression of melanic characters that show continuous variation, and suggest that this pathway also applies to discrete colour morphs. We suggest that the need to maintain low GSH levels for eumelanogenesis in dark morph individuals may represent a physiological constraint that helps regulate the evolution and maintenance of polymorphisms