Native American Flute Meditation: Musical Instrument Design, Construction and Playing as Contemplative Practice

For almost two years now, I have been involved in hand-crafting and playing my own Native American-style flutes. In the course of that time, this hobby has gradually merged with my interests in mindfulness and meditation practices to produce a unique result, nearly a fully fledged form of contemplation in its own right. For me, flute making and playing have become inseparable and vital components of a seamless process, one whose various stages can all be undertaken as occasions for the application of meditative techniques. Defining meditation in essence as the expansion of awareness in any activity—whether focused on a specific object of experience (such as the breath or a sound), or maintaining more of an “open” focus on the field of experience as a whole (mindfulness)—this project examines in detail how each step of the artistic process becomes a meditation, from the initial phases of design, through construction and tuning methods, to the actual playing of a finished instrument. It also presents a series of flutes that I have completed over the course of the year. As there is little information to be found in the Native American traditions themselves about flute playing as a tool for meditation, an extended comparison is made to the musically and structurally similar Japanese shakuhachi flute; for the Zen monks who play it have used it as a primary means to realize and express enlightenment for hundreds of years. Lacking any formal meditation techniques for the Native American flute as already given, I explore the possible applications of the more systematically developed suizen, or “blowing meditation” practices of these monks to my own experiences with playing the Native style flute, touching on such topics as breath control and awareness, creative spontaneity, and concentration on basic unity in the immediacy of experience through the medium of sound

Grinding Gears: Meshing Maine Mortgage Foreclosure Law and the Bankruptcy Code

In Maine interesting and unresolved questions often arise when a mortgagor files for bankruptcy after a judgment of foreclosure has been entered in state court but before a foreclosure sale has occurred. Specifically, what rights does the mortgagor have in the real property? And are the mortgagee\u27s subsequent steps to complete the sale barred by the automatic stay of the Bankruptcy Code (“Code”)? These questions are made more difficult because Maine is a title theory state and because the foreclosure sale occurs after the expiration of the statutory redemption period rather than, as in most states, before it. Because a mortgagor is statutorily entitled to any surplus from a foreclosure sale, this entitlement naturally piques the interest of a bankruptcy debtor, trustee, and judge. Each may have a desire to assure that a surplus is created if at all possible. Each of these considerations reveals a tension between the Code and Maine law. Unfortunately, even though the Maine bankruptcy court has had the opportunity, it has failed thus far to clarify these issues. In order to enable courts to mesh the two fields of law without doing violence to either, this Article proposes a solution. First, it asserts that the entry of a foreclosure judgment limits the scope of a debtor\u27s rights under the Code—an approach which comports with legislative intent and Supreme Court mandate. Next, this Article analyzes the extent to which the automatic stay applies to a mortgagee\u27s efforts to conclude a foreclosure sale and suggests how courts ought to analyze a mortgagee\u27s request for relief from stay. In addition, this Article explains the temptation of some courts to make debtor-oriented decisions in certain cases where a surplus is possible or reinstatement is desired. Such decisions are bad precedent and run counter to existing law. Finally, this Article contends that the proposed analysis provides the Maine bankruptcy court with an approach that will clarify the current confusing state of bankruptcy law surrounding mortgagees\u27 and mortgagors\u27 rights in bankruptcy while also harmonizing the Code and Maine law

Grinding Gears: Meshing Maine Mortgage Foreclosure Law and the Bankruptcy Code

In Maine interesting and unresolved questions often arise when a mortgagor files for bankruptcy after a judgment of foreclosure has been entered in state court but before a foreclosure sale has occurred. Specifically, what rights does the mortgagor have in the real property? And are the mortgagee\u27s subsequent steps to complete the sale barred by the automatic stay of the Bankruptcy Code (“Code”)? These questions are made more difficult because Maine is a title theory state and because the foreclosure sale occurs after the expiration of the statutory redemption period rather than, as in most states, before it. Because a mortgagor is statutorily entitled to any surplus from a foreclosure sale, this entitlement naturally piques the interest of a bankruptcy debtor, trustee, and judge. Each may have a desire to assure that a surplus is created if at all possible. Each of these considerations reveals a tension between the Code and Maine law. Unfortunately, even though the Maine bankruptcy court has had the opportunity, it has failed thus far to clarify these issues. In order to enable courts to mesh the two fields of law without doing violence to either, this Article proposes a solution. First, it asserts that the entry of a foreclosure judgment limits the scope of a debtor\u27s rights under the Code—an approach which comports with legislative intent and Supreme Court mandate. Next, this Article analyzes the extent to which the automatic stay applies to a mortgagee\u27s efforts to conclude a foreclosure sale and suggests how courts ought to analyze a mortgagee\u27s request for relief from stay. In addition, this Article explains the temptation of some courts to make debtor-oriented decisions in certain cases where a surplus is possible or reinstatement is desired. Such decisions are bad precedent and run counter to existing law. Finally, this Article contends that the proposed analysis provides the Maine bankruptcy court with an approach that will clarify the current confusing state of bankruptcy law surrounding mortgagees\u27 and mortgagors\u27 rights in bankruptcy while also harmonizing the Code and Maine law

Linear Mode Connectivity in Sparse Neural Networks

With the rise in interest of sparse neural networks, we study how neural network pruning with synthetic data leads to sparse networks with unique training properties. We find that distilled data, a synthetic summarization of the real data, paired with Iterative Magnitude Pruning (IMP) unveils a new class of sparse networks that are more stable to SGD noise on the real data, than either the dense model, or subnetworks found with real data in IMP. That is, synthetically chosen subnetworks often train to the same minima, or exhibit linear mode connectivity. We study this through linear interpolation, loss landscape visualizations, and measuring the diagonal of the hessian. While dataset distillation as a field is still young, we find that these properties lead to synthetic subnetworks matching the performance of traditional IMP with up to 150x less training points in settings where distilled data applies.Comment: Published in NeurIPS 2023 UniReps Worksho

Monochromatic triangles in three-coloured graphs

In 1959, Goodman determined the minimum number of monochromatic triangles in a complete graph whose edge set is two-coloured. Goodman also raised the question of proving analogous results for complete graphs whose edge sets are coloured with more than two colours. In this paper, we determine the minimum number of monochromatic triangles and the colourings which achieve this minimum in a sufficiently large three-coloured complete graph.Comment: Some data needed to verify the proof can be found at http://www.math.cmu.edu/users/jcumming/ckpsty

Signatures of quantum chaos in rare-earth elements: I. Characterization of the Hamiltonian matrices and coupling matrices of Ce I and Pr I using the statistical predictions of Random Matrix Theory.

Using the relativistic configuration interaction Hartree–Fock method the Hamiltonian matrices of Ce I, J = 4±, and Pr I, J = 11/2±, are studied. These matrices can be characterized as sparse, banded matrices, with a leading diagonal. Diagonalization of the Hamiltonian results in a set of energy eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors and the purpose of this investigation will be to characterize the Hamiltonian matrices and coupling matrices of Ce I and Pr I, for both ls and jj coupling representations, using various statistical predictions of Random Matrix Theory

Simple statistical models predict C-to-U edited sites in plant mitochondrial RNA

BACKGROUND: RNA editing is the process whereby an RNA sequence is modified from the sequence of the corresponding DNA template. In the mitochondria of land plants, some cytidines are converted to uridines before translation. Despite substantial study, the molecular biological mechanism by which C-to-U RNA editing proceeds remains relatively obscure, although several experimental studies have implicated a role for cis-recognition. A highly non-random distribution of nucleotides is observed in the immediate vicinity of edited sites (within 20 nucleotides 5' and 3'), but no precise consensus motif has been identified. RESULTS: Data for analysis were derived from the the complete mitochondrial genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana, Brassica napus, and Oryza sativa; additionally, a combined data set of observations across all three genomes was generated. We selected datasets based on the 20 nucleotides 5' and the 20 nucleotides 3' of edited sites and an equivalently sized and appropriately constructed null-set of non-edited sites. We used tree-based statistical methods and random forests to generate models of C-to-U RNA editing based on the nucleotides surrounding the edited/non-edited sites and on the estimated folding energies of those regions. Tree-based statistical methods based on primary sequence data surrounding edited/non-edited sites and estimates of free energy of folding yield models with optimistic re-substitution-based estimates of ~0.71 accuracy, ~0.64 sensitivity, and ~0.88 specificity. Random forest analysis yielded better models and more exact performance estimates with ~0.74 accuracy, ~0.72 sensitivity, and ~0.81 specificity for the combined observations. CONCLUSIONS: Simple models do moderately well in predicting which cytidines will be edited to uridines, and provide the first quantitative predictive models for RNA edited sites in plant mitochondria. Our analysis shows that the identity of the nucleotide -1 to the edited C and the estimated free energy of folding for a 41 nt region surrounding the edited C are the most important variables that distinguish most edited from non-edited sites. However, the results suggest that primary sequence data and simple free energy of folding calculations alone are insufficient to make highly accurate predictions

Signatures of quantum chaos in rare-earth elements: II. Characterization of the energy eigenvalues and dipole moments of Ce I and Pr I

Using the relativistic configuration interaction Hartree–Fock method the energy eigenvalues and dipole moments of Ce I, J = 4± and Pr I, J = 11/2±, both members of the rare earth sequence, are examined for the presence of signatures of quantum chaos, using the following spectral statistics: nearest neighbour spacing, covariance of adjacent spacings, spectral rigidity, correlation-hole method and χ2(ν) probability distribution

Multifractal analysis of selected rare-earth elements.

The multifractal formalism is applied to the energy eigenvalues of Ce I, CeII, Nd II, SmI, SmII, and Tb I. The R´enyi dimensionsDq , mass exponents τ(q) and f (α) spectra are calculated and used to characterize the eigenvalue spectra. It is found that these elements show multi-scaling behaviour that can be accurately modelled by simple multifractal recursive Cantor sets. The effect of unfolding the spectra is also investigated