Beyond the Myth of East-West Hybridity: An Analysis of Lou Harrison's Works for Gamelan and Western Instruments

Frequently cited as being among Lou Harrison&rsquo;s most important East-West fusions, the works for Indonesian gamelan and Western instruments have served as emblems of Harrison&rsquo;s distinctive transcultural voice. Yet, as my research shows, treating these pieces as hybrids between East and West creates a limited frame for understanding Harrison&rsquo;s compositional interests. While these pieces outwardly display his life-long interest in Asian musics and his penchant for combining disparate musical styles within a single composition, hidden beneath this timbral juxtaposition lies a compositional complexity far more essential to Harrison&rsquo;s creative process. More than blending East and West, the pieces for gamelan and Western instruments reveal a rigorous interplay between form and spontaneity. Through close analysis of four of Harrison&rsquo;s compositions&mdash;Bubaran Robert 1976, Main Bersama-sama, Threnody for Carlos Ch&aacute;vez, and Bubaran Robert 1981&mdash;I provide critical understanding of his compositional method. Taking as a point of departure Harrison&rsquo;s stated interest in the friction between the value of freedom and the need for method, my investigation reveals the centrality of melody to his compositional inventiveness. The claim that melody occupied a central position within Harrison&rsquo;s aesthetic outlook has frequently been made, but the tendency has been to equate Harrison&rsquo;s melodic skillfulness merely with an attractive lyricism found in the surface features of his work. My analyses show that Harrison&rsquo;s definition of melody extends beyond writing &ldquo;tunes,&rdquo; as he explored how melody (as opposed to large-scale tonal or harmonic schemes) could create form and serve a central generative function in his music. Harrison seems to have conceived of the gamelan parts as a kind of framework with certain fixed properties. Each work employs a structural gong cycle, articulates a central organizing melody (the balungan), and expresses the principle of pitch coincidence. But within these &ldquo;rules,&rdquo; he shows us how multifaceted melody can be in structuring a piece. What these pieces show is the scope of Harrison&rsquo;s strategies for combining melodies played by instruments from two different traditions. Yet more than simply showing the range of his melodic experimentation, my analyses reveal the gradual development of Harrison&rsquo;s personal definition of hybridity.</p

Effectiveness of selected nursing intervention on identification of learning disability among teachers

Children are gift from the god. They are born with the ability and capacity to learn. Children learn the complex system of the world with astonishing speed more than one can think of. Every individual is unique and there are some individuals who by virtue of their physical and mental abilities require a more relevant (or) appropriate instruction that is usually available. Education of disabled children has basic concepts and goals in common with the education of all children and this is where teachers play an important role. The teachers need to attend to the individual differences, need and with the provision of special services to the unnoticed, unserved and ignored population. A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of selected nursing intervention on knowledge and attitude regarding identification of learning disability among teachers at selected schools, Avadi, Chennai, 2010-2011. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of teachers in experimental and control group with selected demographic variables. The study was conducted by adopting quasi experimental design and 60 teachers (30 experimental and 30 control group) who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were selected by using non probability purposive sampling technique. The conceptual framework adopted was based on Wiedenbach‟s helping are nursing theory. In this study structured questionnaire and modified 3-point Likert scale were used to assess the knowledge and attitude of teachers. Pretest revealed that 20 teachers had inadequate, 10 teachers had moderately adequate knowledge. Regarding attitude 9 teachers had unfavorable, 19 had moderately favorable, 2 had favorable attitude. After selected nursing intervention (lecture cum discussion, standardized checklist, booklet) a posttest was done which showed a significant increase in the level of knowledge and attitude which was statistically shown by 19 teachers with moderately adequate, 11 teachers with adequate knowledge. Similarly in attitude a favorable improvement was seen with 14 teachers with moderately favorable and 16 teachers with favorable attitude. And thus these methods of early identification followed by intervention will help the teachers to identify children with learning disability which in turn help to produce children who will be a great citizen in the future

Treatment of Intractable Diabetic Macular Edema with Pegaptanib Versus Bevacizumab, Both in Combination with Dexamethasone

BACKGROUND: Diabetic macular edema is a significant cause of vision loss, and some patients do not respond optimally to existing treatments. This study compared the response of intractable diabetic macular edema to intravitreal injection of two anti-VEGF drugs, bevacizumab and pegaptanib, both in combination with dexamethasone. METHODS: A retrospective chart review was conducted to examine patients from an ophthalmology practice in one year with diabetic macular edema (DME), recurrent or persistent, after focal laser or intravitreal bevacizumab. Patients received bevacizumab/dexamethasone or pegaptanib/dexamethasone. Outcome measures were improvement in best corrected visual activity (converted to LogMAR) and central macular thickness (CRT). Data on adverse effects also were collected. RESULTS: The bevacizumab/dexamethasone group included 25 eyes which had pre-treatment LogMAR = 0.69 ± 0.49 (mean ± SD) and CRT = 419 ± 131. Post-treatment LogMAR was 0.70 ± 0.48 and CRT = 377 ± 107. The pegaptanib/dexamethasone group included 14 eyes; pretreatment LogMAR = 0.80 ± 0.55 and CRT = 520 ± 108. Post-treatment LogMAR was 0.77 ± 0.49 and CRT = 46 4 ± 106. Neither treatment had a significant effect on visual acuity. Both groups experienced a significant decrease in CRT over time (p = 0.006). The pegaptanib/ dexamethasone group had higher CRT at all times (p = 0.020), but the trend in CRT decrease was not different between the two groups. Intraocular pressure increased in both groups (p = 0.038). No other adverse effects were reported. CONCLUSIONS: Neither bevacizumab/dexamethasone or pegaptanib/dexamethasone significantly improved visual acuity in intractable DME, but both decreased central macular thickness. Differences in outcome measures between the two treatment groups were not significant. The only adverse effect seen was a small increase in intraocular pressure

Engagement in Behavioral Parent Training: Review of the Literature and Implications for Practice

Engagement in behavioral parent training (BPT), including enrollment, attrition, attendance, within-session engagement, and homework completion, has long been a critical issue in the literature. Several estimates of various aspects of engagement have been suggested in the literature, but a systematic review of the available literature has never been accomplished. This review examines engagement data across 262 studies of BPT. Recruitment attrition, program attrition, attendance, and within-session engagement are examined across studies, with particular emphasis on the impact that SES, study purpose (efficacy vs. effectiveness), treatment format (individual vs. group), and age of child may have on those rates. Results of this review suggest that the significant amount of attrition occurs prior to enrollment in BPT, with at least 25 % of those identified as appropriate for BPT not enrolling in such programs. An additional 26 % begin, but drop out before completing treatment. Still the combined dropout rate of at least 51 % leaves at best half of identified parents completing treatment. While SES status had a small effect on attrition, other variables were not found to meaningfully impact engagement. Information on within-session engagement (homework and ratings of participation) was not often reported in studies. Key issues in this literature (e.g., varying definitions of engagement, limited attention to reporting key aspects of engagement) are discussed, and recommendations are made to further improve this important area of research and clinical practice

Objective Analysis of Marker Bias in Higher Education

Marker bias has been a serious factor contributing to discrepancy in assessments. In this study we analyze one year students' results in a Business Faculty within an Australian university to understand the extent of variation induced by marker bias in multiple marker scenarios. The study shows interesting insights regarding the marking trends of a particular marker, and shows variations among markers in a particular course. The study paves the way for quantification of marker variation through objective analysis

Patterns of mandibular invasion in oral squamous cell carcinoma of the mandibular region

BACKGROUND: Mandibular resections are routinely carried out for achieving a R0 resection for oral cancers. However, the need of mandibular resection to achieve this has always been questioned. The present study was carried out to define the pattern of mandibular involvement in carcinoma of the mandibular region. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 25 consecutive patients who had undergone mandibular resection and were found to have mandibular invasion were studied in a prospective open fashion. After decalcification the specimens were serially sectioned at 1 cm interval to identify invasion of mandibular bone. Type of invasion, route of spread and host cell reactions were also recorded. RESULTS: The mandibular involvement was infiltrative in 14(56%) and erosive in 11(44%). It was cortical in 5(20%), marrow involvement was seen in 15(60%) while 5(20%) had spread through the inferior alveolar canal. Of the 25, 24(96%) lesions were located with in 1 cm of the mandible. CONCLUSION: The possibility of mandibular involvement is higher in patients where tumours are located with in 1 cm of the mandible. Involvement of mandible through the canal of inferior alveolar nerve in the present study was relatively high (20%). Therefore it is recommended that before a decision is taken to preserve the mandible it should be thoroughly screened for possible involvement

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin with gemtuzumab ozogamicin improves event-free survival in younger patients with newly diagnosed aml and overall survival in patients with npm1 and flt3 mutations

Purpose To determine the optimal induction chemotherapy regimen for younger adults with newly diagnosed AML without known adverse risk cytogenetics. Patients and Methods One thousand thirty-three patients were randomly assigned to intensified (fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin [FLAG-Ida]) or standard (daunorubicin and Ara-C [DA]) induction chemotherapy, with one or two doses of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO). The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Results There was no difference in remission rate after two courses between FLAG-Ida + GO and DA + GO (complete remission [CR] + CR with incomplete hematologic recovery 93% v 91%) or in day 60 mortality (4.3% v 4.6%). There was no difference in OS (66% v 63%; P = .41); however, the risk of relapse was lower with FLAG-Ida + GO (24% v 41%; P < .001) and 3-year event-free survival was higher (57% v 45%; P < .001). In patients with an NPM1 mutation (30%), 3-year OS was significantly higher with FLAG-Ida + GO (82% v 64%; P = .005). NPM1 measurable residual disease (MRD) clearance was also greater, with 88% versus 77% becoming MRD-negative in peripheral blood after cycle 2 (P = .02). Three-year OS was also higher in patients with a FLT3 mutation (64% v 54%; P = .047). Fewer transplants were performed in patients receiving FLAG-Ida + GO (238 v 278; P = .02). There was no difference in outcome according to the number of GO doses, although NPM1 MRD clearance was higher with two doses in the DA arm. Patients with core binding factor AML treated with DA and one dose of GO had a 3-year OS of 96% with no survival benefit from FLAG-Ida + GO. Conclusion Overall, FLAG-Ida + GO significantly reduced relapse without improving OS. However, exploratory analyses show that patients with NPM1 and FLT3 mutations had substantial improvements in OS. By contrast, in patients with core binding factor AML, outcomes were excellent with DA + GO with no FLAG-Ida benefit