Different Placements of Spirit: African American Musicians Historicizing in Sound

This dissertation examines two recent projects by African American musicians that enact critical and historiographic agency by reconstructing the music of the past: William Parker\u27s project The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield, dedicated to re-imagining the works of the soul music icon with an ensemble featuring the poetic recitation of Amiri Baraka; and Marcus Roberts\u27s reinvention of the Jazz Age rhapsodies of George Gershwin and James P. Johnson, Rhapsody in Blue and Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody. Rooted in African American interpretive traditions, and working both within and against such discursive categories as jazz, black music, and American music, these artists use musical reinvention not only to articulate their identities and forebears, but to construct broader narratives of musical history and genre. Moreover, because they revisit works preoccupied with questions of racial, cultural, and national identity, these revisionist musical projects can also be read as revisionist cultural histories. Through my analyses I argue that Parker\u27s project responds to the collapse of radical movement politics since the 1970s, and that his musical practices become the site of their own spiritual-political liberation, while Roberts\u27s project serves to revise and realign the histories of American art music and political identity with African American cultural production, in dialogue with the writings of Albert Murray

Todesfuge

Todesfuge (2008-2010) is a setting, for tenor and chamber orchestra, of Paul Celan\u27s poem of the same name. Celan wrote his landmark work on the Holocaust in the years after he himself was freed from internment in a Romanian forced labor camp in 1944, though its imagery is drawn from accounts of the death camps in Poland. From the outset, I was ambivalent about setting this text to music, but felt compelled, and my response was to frame it with idiomatic references to German music from Wagner to Weill, exploring the discomfort of using aesthetic artifice to represent unspeakable atrocities. In this sense, my setting aspires to enter into a dialogue with the spare lyricism of Celan\u27s German text, itself so hauntingly beautiful yet witness to such desolation

Opportunities and Challenges for Rural Broadband Infrastructure Investment

Insufficient internet access is holding back local economies, reducing educational outcomes, and creating health disparities in rural areas of the U.S. At present, federal and state funding is available for rural broadband infrastructure deployment, but existing efforts have not invested in analytical work to maximize efficiency and minimize cost. In this study, we use a state-of-the-art matrix (SAM) to identify key challenges and opportunities facing rural broadband infrastructure from previous research and government reports. We focus on six themes: (1) technology, (2) hardware costs, (3) financing, (4) adoption, (5) regulatory/legal, and (6) management. We highlight key issues to be addressed by both private and public decision-makers to effectively manage broadband investment as well as engage stakeholders to improve access and adoption. Much of the challenge for rural broadband infrastructure is related to a low return on investment due to high capital costs and low population densities. However, there are many innovative approaches to overcoming this barrier from technical, policy, and social perspectives. Unfortunately, adoption and management are understudied and would benefit from additional research to design effective decision-making tools and programs. From a systems perspective, solutions that leverage tools from a diverse set of perspectives, rather than purely focusing on technology deployment, are more likely to be sustainable in the long-term. We outline an agenda for future work based on the needs of rural communities as well as local and state governments

2015 AFRL University Design Challenge

The University of Akron’s Air Force Research Laboratory’s Design Challenge Team has engineered a Heat Stress Prevention Kit that includes a facial mask in which the soldier will cool down from the inside out by breathing in the cool air circulating throughout the mask. This cool air is produced from a thermoelectric chip, which has a specific temperature difference on either side, one hot and one cold. Each of the sides is isolated from one another and with the combination of heat sinks, fans, and the simple process of breathing, a system is created by inhaling cool air. The entire system is powered and controlled by a power source including two LiPo batteries, an Arduino Uno Circuit Board, and a relay all encased in an external pouch which can attach to any Molle strap system. A bonus feature to this mask system is it can be turned into a Hypothermia Prevention Kit by switching the wires or the voltage of the thermoelectric chip

2015 AFRL University and Service Academy Design Challenge

The University of Akron’s Air Force Research Laboratory’s Design Challenge Team has engineered a Heat Stress Prevention Kit that includes a facial mask in which the soldier will cool down from the inside out by breathing in the cool air circulating throughout the mask. This cool air is produced from a thermoelectric chip, which has a specific temperature difference on either side, one hot and one cold. Each of the sides are isolated from one another and with the combination of heatsinks, fans, and the simple process of breathing, a system is created by inhaling cool air. The entire system is powered and controlled by a power source including two LiPo batteries, an Arduino Uno Circuit Board, and a relay all encased in an external pouch which can attach to any Molle strap system. A bonus feature to this mask system is it ca

Dynamics of Simple Balancing Models with State Dependent Switching Control

Time-delayed control in a balancing problem may be a nonsmooth function for a variety of reasons. In this paper we study a simple model of the control of an inverted pendulum by either a connected movable cart or an applied torque for which the control is turned off when the pendulum is located within certain regions of phase space. Without applying a small angle approximation for deviations about the vertical position, we see structurally stable periodic orbits which may be attracting or repelling. Due to the nonsmooth nature of the control, these periodic orbits are born in various discontinuity-induced bifurcations. Also we show that a coincidence of switching events can produce complicated periodic and aperiodic solutions.Comment: 36 pages, 12 figure

Uncovering treatment burden as a key concept for stroke care: a systematic review of qualitative research

<b>Background</b> Patients with chronic disease may experience complicated management plans requiring significant personal investment. This has been termed ‘treatment burden’ and has been associated with unfavourable outcomes. The aim of this systematic review is to examine the qualitative literature on treatment burden in stroke from the patient perspective.<p></p> <b>Methods and findings</b> The search strategy centred on: stroke, treatment burden, patient experience, and qualitative methods. We searched: Scopus, CINAHL, Embase, Medline, and PsycINFO. We tracked references, footnotes, and citations. Restrictions included: English language, date of publication January 2000 until February 2013. Two reviewers independently carried out the following: paper screening, data extraction, and data analysis. Data were analysed using framework synthesis, as informed by Normalization Process Theory. Sixty-nine papers were included. Treatment burden includes: (1) making sense of stroke management and planning care, (2) interacting with others, (3) enacting management strategies, and (4) reflecting on management. Health care is fragmented, with poor communication between patient and health care providers. Patients report inadequate information provision. Inpatient care is unsatisfactory, with a perceived lack of empathy from professionals and a shortage of stimulating activities on the ward. Discharge services are poorly coordinated, and accessing health and social care in the community is difficult. The study has potential limitations because it was restricted to studies published in English only and data from low-income countries were scarce.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> Stroke management is extremely demanding for patients, and treatment burden is influenced by micro and macro organisation of health services. Knowledge deficits mean patients are ill equipped to organise their care and develop coping strategies, making adherence less likely. There is a need to transform the approach to care provision so that services are configured to prioritise patient needs rather than those of health care systems

Experimental Evidence of a Variant Neutron Spectrum from the T(t,2n)α Reaction at Center-of-Mass Energies in the Range of 16–50 keV

Full calculations of six-nucleon reactions with a three-body final state have been elusive and a long-standing issue. We present neutron spectra from the T(t,2n)α (TT) reaction measured in inertial confinement fusion experiments at the OMEGA laser facility at ion temperatures from 4 to 18 keV, corresponding to center-of-mass energies (E[subscript c.m.]) from 16 to 50 keV. A clear difference in the shape of the TT-neutron spectrum is observed between the two E[subscript c.m.], with the ⁵He ground state resonant peak at 8.6 MeV being significantly stronger at the higher than at the lower energy. The data provide the first conclusive evidence of a variant TT-neutron spectrum in this E[subscript c.m.] range. In contrast to earlier available data, this indicates a reaction mechanism that must involve resonances and/or higher angular momenta than L=0. This finding provides an important experimental constraint on theoretical efforts that explore this and complementary six-nucleon systems, such as the solar ³He(³He,2p)α reaction

Characterisation and internalisation of recombinant humanised HMFG-1 antibodies against MUC1

The humanised HMFG-1 immunoglobulin has been extensively developed as a clinical immunotherapeutic agent for MUC1 expressing tumours. We have constructed a single-chain Fv (scFv) and Fab fragment from this antibody and shown that both these species retain their specificity for MUC1. The scFv was less stable and less soluble than the Fab. Detailed analyses of the binding kinetics of the whole IgG and Fab fragment show that the affinity for MUC1 synthetic peptides is low (approximately 100 n for the IgG and 10 μ for the Fab), with particularly low but similar dissociation rate constants (0.031–0.095 s−1). Binding to native antigen on the cell surface is over two orders of magnitude better. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy shows that both the IgG and Fab are internalised rapidly (the IgG is internalised within 15 min) and colocalise to early endosomes. This work provides an appreciation of the binding, internalising and trafficking kinetics, important for the development of future therapeutics based on this antibody