Synergy of Orchestration, Rhythm, and Form in Three Microtonal Compositions

Microtonal pitch systems have musical implications beyond the organization of pitch, suggesting the possibility of functioning symbiotically with orchestration, rhythm, and form in a musical work. This essay focuses on three compositions, each of which approaches tuning and microtonality in a unique way: The Delusion of the Fury (1969) by Harry Partch, Limited Approximations (2010) by Georg Friedrich Haas, and Asking Ocean (2016) by Marc Sabat. After a general analysis of the pitch materials in these three works, passages of music are examined and compared to illustrate how pitch systems, especially those in extended just intonation, inform orchestration, rhythm, and form, exploring how these composers balance the practical considerations of writing microtonal music with artistic intent. This essay argues that the success of these three works relates to a sensitivity toward the limitations and possibilities of their novel approaches to microtonal pitch organization

Inequality talk:How discourses by senior men reinforce exclusions from creative occupations

Cultural Studies has drawn attention to the way that cultural and creative industries are marked by significant inequalities. This article explores how these inequalities are maintained, through fieldwork with senior men making decisions in cultural and creative industries. Drawing on 32 interviews with senior men across a range of cultural and creative industry occupations, conducted as part of a larger (N = 237) project, the analysis shows that misrecognition and outright rejection of inequalities are now not the norm. Rather, ‘inequality talk’ and the recognition of structural barriers for marginalised groups is a dominant discourse. However, individual careers are still explained by gentlemanly tropes and the idea of luck, rather than by reference to structural inequalities. The distance between the discourse of career luck and ‘inequality talk’ helps to explain the persistence of exclusions from the workforce for those who are not white, middle class origin, men. This has important implications for inequalities in cultural production and consumption, and in turn for wider social inequality

Social mobility and ‘openness’ in creative occupations since the 1970s

Social mobility in the cultural sector is currently an important issue in government policy and public discussion, associated with perceptions of a collapse in numbers of working-class origin individuals becoming artists, actors, musicians and authors. The question of who works in creative occupations has also attracted significant sociological attention. To date, however, there have been no empirically grounded studies into the changing social composition of such occupations. This article uses the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study to show that, while those from more privileged social backgrounds have long dominated, there has been no change in the relative class mobility chances of gaining access to creative work. Instead, we must turn to the pattern of absolute mobility into this sector in order to understand claims that it is experiencing a ‘mobility crisis’

Diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori by carbon-13 urea breath test using a portable mass spectrometer

CONTEXT: In the non-invasive detection of markers of disease, mass spectrometry is able to detect small quantities of volatile markers in exhaled air. However, the problem of size, expense and immobility of conventional mass spectrometry equipment has restricted its use. Now, a smaller, less expensive, portable quadrupole mass spectrometer system has been developed. Helicobacter pylori has been implicated in the development of chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers and gastric cancer. OBJECTIVES: To compare the results obtained from the presence of H. pylori by a carbon-13 urea test using a portable quadrupole mass spectrometer system with those from a fixed mass spectrometer in a hospital-based clinical trial. METHODS: Following ethical approval, 45 patients attending a gastroenterology clinic at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital exhaled a breath sample into a Tedlar gas sampling bag. They then drank an orange juice containing urea radiolabelled with carbon and 30 min later gave a second breath sample. The carbon-13 content of both samples was measured using both quadrupole mass spectrometer systems. If the post-drink level exceeded the pre-drink level by 3% or more, a positive diagnosis for the presence of H. pylori was made. RESULTS: The findings were compared to the results using conventional isotope ratio mass spectrometry using a laboratory-based magnetic sector instrument off-site. The results showed agreement in 39 of the 45 patients. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that a portable quadrupole mass spectrometer is a potential alternative to the conventional centralised testing equipment. Future development of the portable quadrupole mass spectrometer to reduce further its size and cost is indicated, together with further work to validate this new equipment and to enhance its use in mass spectrometry diagnosis of other medical conditions

“There’s no way that you get paid to do the arts”: unpaid labour across the cultural and creative life course

Unpaid labour is an important element of how precarity has been theorised. It is also an issue that is often seen as endemic to cultural and creative work. Questions as to the role of unpaid work, including but not limited to unpaid internships, have become central to understanding how the social exclusiveness of many cultural and creative jobs is reinforced through their precarity. This article uses survey and interview data to outline the differing experiences of unpaid labour in cultural jobs. It contrasts the meaning of ‘free’ work over the life courses of a range of creative workers, showing how it is stratified by social class, age, and career stage. By exploring the stratification of unpaid work as a form of precariousness in cultural jobs, and of who describes their experiences of unpaid work as benign, the article offers new empirical evidence for those challenging the negative impacts of precarious working conditions

CO(2) Diffusion in Polar Ice: Observations from Naturally Formed CO(2) Spikes in the Siple Dome (Antarctica) Ice Core

One common assumption in interpreting ice-core CO(2) records is that diffusion in the ice does not affect the concentration profile. However, this assumption remains untested because the extremely small CO(2) diffusion coefficient in ice has not been accurately determined in the laboratory. In this study we take advantage of high levels of CO(2) associated with refrozen layers in an ice core from Siple Dome, Antarctica, to study CO(2) diffusion rates. We use noble gases (Xe/Ar and Kr/Ar), electrical conductivity and Ca(2+) ion concentrations to show that substantial CO(2) diffusion may occur in ice on timescales of thousands of years. We estimate the permeation coefficient for CO(2) in ice is similar to 4 x 10(-21) mol m(-1) s(-1) Pa(-1) at -23 degrees C in the top 287 m (corresponding to 2.74 kyr). Smoothing of the CO(2) record by diffusion at this depth/age is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the smoothing in the firn. However, simulations for depths of similar to 930-950m (similar to 60-70 kyr) indicate that smoothing of the CO(2) record by diffusion in deep ice is comparable to smoothing in the firn. Other types of diffusion (e.g. via liquid in ice grain boundaries or veins) may also be important but their influence has not been quantified