Integrating musicology's heterogeneous data sources for better exploration

Musicologists have to consult an extraordinarily heterogeneous body of primary and secondary sources during all stages of their research. Many of these sources are now available online, but the historical dispersal of material across libraries and archives has now been replaced by segregation of data and metadata into a plethora of online repositories. This segregation hinders the intelligent manipulation of metadata, and means that extracting large tranches of basic factual information or running multi-part search queries is still enormously and needlessly time consuming. To counter this barrier to research, the “musicSpace” project is experimenting with integrating access to many of musicology’s leading data sources via a modern faceted browsing interface that utilises Semantic Web and Web2.0 technologies such as RDF and AJAX. This will make previously intractable search queries tractable, enable musicologists to use their time more efficiently, and aid the discovery of potentially significant information that users did not think to look for. This paper outlines our work to date

The theory and methodology of classifications of the fifth and sixth centuries A. D. of Anglo-Saxon England with reference to great square-headed brooches

This thesis seeks to establish how to set up chronologically reliable classifications of fifth- and sixth-century metalwork, using square-headed brooches as the principal example. The problem arises from the absence in this period of the usual, more reliable, dating tools such as documents, coins and pottery. As a primary dating tool metalwork is therefore unsupported, and it is crucial that classification is carried out with great rigour and objectivity. The first half of this thesis (chapters 2 to 7) discusses various requirements which need to be met if classification is to be rigorous and objective. The overall conclusions are that: - existing classifications, not just of square-headed brooches but of all fifth- and sixth-century metalwork, may be unreliable; - reliance on existing chronologies, not just of square-headed brooches but of all fifth- and sixth-century metalwork, should be suspended for the time being; - the entire system should be re-assessed from first principles. The first stages of such a re-assessment are attempted in the second half of the thesis. Chapter 8 attributes much of the faulty existing methodology to a misunderstanding of the method devised and practised by Montelius in the late nineteenth century, compounded by a false analogy with biological evolution; and in chapter 9 a revised version of Montelius' actual method is proposed as a sound basis for re-assessing early Anglo-Saxon metalwork classifications. Chapters 10 to 12 then exemplify various attempts to classify a corpus of 95 complete great square-headed brooches by rigorous, objective methods. In chapter 13, however, it is shown that further progress is likely to be limited, for the time being, to applying the suggested methods to other artefact-types, thus producing groups of various artefacts all free-floating and awaiting evidence that will tie them down chronologically. Finally, in chapter 14 it is recommended that classifications of early Anglo-Saxon metalwork currently in use should be re-examined and if necessary revised; that (except for tentative dates for the beginning and end of Salin's Style I) the attaching of even suggested dates to artefacts of this period and their find contexts should be suspended; and that archaeologists should make an urgent search for objective methods of demonstrating contemporeanity of objects in addition to decorative similarity, especially toolmark links

GULF STREAM MEANDERS OFF NORTH CAROLINA DURING WINTER AND SUMMER 1979.

Meanders produced most of the subtidal variability in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina during 1979. Recording instruments were moored in the lower half of the water column over the 200-m and 400-m isobaths for two periods of 4 months, one in the late winter and one in the late summer. In both seasons, the middepth current speed typically fluctuated between minus 50 cm s** minus **1 and plus 100 cm s** minus **1 about a 30 cm s** minus **1 downstream mean. The velocity, temperature, and salinity fluctuations had a prominent weekly time scale in the winter, caused by the meandering stream. In the summer the weekly time scale was less prominent within a generally energetic 3- to 10-day period band. In both seasons, the meandering currents were nearly in phase vertically, and the meanders propagated downstream at approximationly 40 km d** minus **1. Shallow, in-shore filaments of warm water, separated from the main stream by bands of cooler surface water, are often extruded from the Gulf Stream front during the shoreward-most phase (crest) of meanders

Free-boundary Full-pressure Island Healing in a Stellarator: Coil-healing

The lack of axisymmetry in stellarators guarantees that in general magnetic islands and chaotic magnetic field lines will exist. As particle transport is strongly tied to the magnetic field lines, magnetic islands and chaotic field lines result in poor plasma confinement. For stellarators to be feasible candidates for fusion power stations it is essential that, to a good approximation, the magnetic field lines lie on nested flux-surfaces, and the suppression of magnetic islands is a critical issue for stellarator coil design, particularly for small aspect ratio devices. A procedure for modifying stellarator coil designs to eliminate magnetic islands in free-boundary full-pressure magnetohydrodynamic equilibria is presented. Islands may be removed from coil-plasma free-boundary equilibria by making small changes to the coil geometry and also by variation of trim coil currents. A plasma and coil design relevant to the National Compact Stellarator Experiment is used to illustrate the technique

High frequency resonant experiments in Fe8_8 molecular clusters

Precise resonant experiments on Fe$_{8}$ magnetic clusters have been conducted down to 1.2 K at various tranverse magnetic fields, using a cylindrical resonator cavity with 40 different frequencies between 37 GHz and 110 GHz. All the observed resonances for both single crystal and oriented powder, have been fitted by the eigenstates of the hamiltonian ${\cal H}=-DS_z^2+ES_x^2-g\mu_B{\bf H}\cdot {\bf S}$. We have identified the resonances corresponding to the coherent quantum oscillations for different orientations of spin S = 10.Comment: to appear in Phys.Rev. B (August 2000

Attitudes to a male contraceptive pill in a group of contraceptive users in the UK

BACKGROUND. Small scale trials of male hormonal contraception have produced encouraging results. Attitudes to and beliefs about a proposed male pill may affect uptake. METHODS. This paper examines attitudes towards a proposed ‘male contraceptive pill’ among a self selected sample of 54 men and 134 women, living in a non-metropolitan centre in the East of England, United Kingdom who were already users of contraception. Thirty four respondents were also interviewed and their views on the male pill were qualitatively analysed. RESULTS. The acceptability of a male pill was high with just under half (49.5%) of respondents indicating that they would use it. Gender, length of relationship, age and educational achievement did not affect the reported acceptability. 42% of respondents expressed concerns that men would forget to take a male pill. Women were significantly more likely to express this concern than men. 26% of respondents expressed health concerns. Willingness to take a male pill was associated with expressing the view that increased protection against pregnancy would be an advantage of such a method. Those unwilling or undecided were more likely to express concerns about the effect of a pill on future fertility. CONCLUSIONS. A male pill was accepted as a potential aid to increased fertility control by a large proportion of a convenience sample of contraceptive users in the East of England. If a male pill were to be marketed in the UK this study suggests that concerns about effects on future fertility and health risks may need to be addressed