The Enlightenment: Very Different Effects on Western European and Russian Sacred Music

Presented at the International Conference on Sacred Music East and West: Enlightenment & Illumination, in Prague, Czech Republic on 23-25 November 2018.

Historical Performance Norms and Russian Sacred Music: The Case of Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil

Historical performances can create de facto norms that inform or constrain later performances, but relevant studies of Russian sacred music have long been constrained by a lack of recordings. Recently, the demise of the Soviet Union, the advent of the Internet and the popularity of Rachmaninov’s Vigil (“Vespers”) have collectively made multiple recordings available; 34 were analysed for this paper using the Magnificat (section 11). Group 1 included four Soviet-era recordings, with the first ‘historical’ recording, made by Sveshnikov in 1965. The latter never officially appeared in the USSR, but was released in the West, consistent with interest in promoting Soviet achievements. The remaining 30 recordings came after 1991: nine by Slavic choirs (Group 2); and 21 by non-Slavic choirs (Group 3). The following measures were scored subjectively: quality of singing; weight; balance and coordination; tuning; dynamic range; vocal clarity; and prominence of basses. Choirs in Groups 1 and 2 generally followed the historical Sveshnikov ‘concert’ formulation – large choir; weighty singing; prominent basses; and extreme dynamics. Some Group 3 choirs followed this pattern, but several were smaller and gave lighter ‘chamber’ performances with better balance across the four voice parts. High quality of singing was notable in the smaller, all-professional ensembles. In conclusion, weighty, concert performances may have become a norm for this work; however, the Magnificat is said reflectively by Mary, a humble woman, in reverence and thanks for her blessing. Perhaps it is now time to be exploring more nuanced chamber performances

Transferrin Binding to Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes Activated by Phytohemagglutinin Involves a Specific Receptor: Ligand Interaction

Immunohistological studies have indicated that membrane sites binding transferrin are present upon activated human peripheral blood lymphocytes. In this study, we have investigated transferrin uptake in human lymphocytes exposed to phytohemagglutinin (PHA), by quantitative radiobinding and immunofluorescence in parallel. In stimulated lymphocytes, binding was maximal after a 30-min incubation, being greatest at 37°C, and greater at 22°C than at 4°C. Although some shedding and endocytosis of transferrin occurred at 22° and 37°C, these factors, and resulting synthesis of new sites, did not affect measurement of binding which was found to be saturable, reversible, and specific for transferrin (Ka 0.5-2.5 x 10^8 M-1). Binding was greater after a 48-h exposure to PHA than after 24 h, and was maximal at 66 h. Sequential Scatchard analysis revealed no significant elevation in affinity of interaction. However, although the total number of receptors increased, the proportion of cells in which binding of ligand was detected immunohistologically increased in parallel, and after appropriate correction, the cellular density of receptors remained relatively constant throughout (60,000-80,000 sites/cell). Increments in binding during the culture period were thus due predominantly to expansion of a population of cells bearing receptors. Similar differences in binding were apparent upon comparison of cells cultured in different doses of PHA, and in unstimulated cells binding was negligible. Transferrin receptors appear, therefore, to be readily detectable only upon lymphocytes that have been activated

The incorporation of polyphony into Russian sacred music

It is a matter of record that while music in the West steadily incorporated polyphony from the ninth century onwards, sacred music in Russia remained largely monophonic until around mid–17th century, when Western–style polyphony (partesny) suddenly appeared and was incorporated. However, the extant literature does not provide any fully satisfactory explanation for the success of this sudden incursion of polyphony, after almost seven centuries of concerted monophony. Accordingly, in this thesis, I examined the period from 1650–1750 in detail, to clarify the factors either promoting, or inhibiting, the abrupt appearance of polyphony. I identified several powerful pre–existing inhibitors, which I conclude had collectively barred polyphony up to mid–17th century. These included religious opposition, geographical isolation, a lack of training facilities and of singers capable of part singing, and musical roadblocks in the traditional Russia monophonic canon. I proposed that the appearance of partesny was directly and temporally related to the softening and eventual disappearance of these inhibitors. In addition, numerous promoters of polyphony long operative in the West, that had previously been largely absent in Russia, emerged gradually as inhibitors waned. I conclude that the array of inhibitors identified played a primary role in successfully holding polyphony at bay until mid–17th century, with an additional lack of promoters playing a secondary role. I further suggest that while the secular music that developed subsequently in the 18th and subsequent centuries could have incorporated polyphony independently of sacred music at several different historical time points, ingress of polyphony into Russian liturgical music may only have been practically possible in the period from 1650–1750. Failing that, it is plausible that Russia’s sacred music could have remained largely monophonic to the present day, as is the case for Greek sacred music

Lymphocyte Culture: Induction of Colonies by Conditioned Medium from Human Lymphoid Cell Lines

It has been shown that macrophage and granulocyte colonies can be induced m semisolid agar (1-3) in the presence of substances termed colony-stimulating factors (CSF), which are released predominantly by monocytes (4). However, attempts to induce formation of lymphoid colonies with CSF have so far proved unsuccessful. In the mouse, B lymphoid colonies are formed in the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol (5), and T lymphoid colonies can be induced with the plant lectins phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and concanavalin A (6). T lymphoid colonies can also be established from human peripheral blood lymphocytes in the presence of PHA (7-9), whereas with pokeweed mitogen mixed T and B lymphoid colonies are formed (9). Established human lymphoid cell lines multiply spontaneously in the absence of plant lectins or mercaptoethanol, and it seemed possible that such cells might release growth-stimulating substances into the culture medium. We have therefore investigated the ability of conditioned medium (CM) obtained from lymphoid cell lines to induce normal human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) to form lymphoid colonies in agar

On Index Calculus Algorithms for Subfield Curves

In this paper we further the study of index calculus methods for solving the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP). We focus on the index calculus for subfield curves, also called Koblitz curves, defined over Fq with ECDLP in Fqn. Instead of accelerating the solution of polynomial systems during index calculus as was predominantly done in previous work, we define factor bases that are invariant under the q-power Frobenius automorphism of the field Fqn, reducing the number of polynomial systems that need to be solved. A reduction by a factor of 1/n is the best one could hope for. We show how to choose factor bases to achieve this, while simultaneously accelerating the linear algebra step of the index calculus method for Koblitz curves by a factor n2. Furthermore, we show how to use the Frobenius endomorphism to improve symmetry breaking for Koblitz curves. We provide constructions of factor bases with the desired properties, and we study their impact on the polynomial system solving costs experimentally.SCOPUS: cp.kinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Anisotropic geometry-conforming d-simplicial meshing via isometric embeddings

We develop a dimension-independent, Delaunay-based anisotropic mesh generation algorithm suitable for integration with adaptive numerical solvers. As such, the mesh produced by our algorithm conforms to an anisotropic metric prescribed by the solver as well as the domain geometry, given as a piecewise smooth complex. Motivated by the work of Lévy and Dassi [10-12,20], we use a discrete manifold embedding algorithm to transform the anisotropic problem to a uniform one. This work differs from previous approaches in several ways. First, the embedding algorithm is driven by a Riemannian metric field instead of the Gauss map, lending itself to general anisotropic mesh generation problems. Second we describe our method for computing restricted Voronoi diagrams in a dimension-independent manner which is used to compute constrained centroidal Voronoi tessellations. In particular, we compute restricted Voronoi simplices using exact arithmetic and use data structures based on convex polytope theory. Finally, since adaptive solvers require geometry-conforming meshes, we offer a Steiner vertex insertion algorithm for ensuring the extracted dual Delaunay triangulation is homeomorphic to the input geometries. The two major contributions of this paper are: a method for isometrically embedding arbitrary mesh-metric pairs in higher dimensional Euclidean spaces and a dimension-independent vertex insertion algorithm for producing geometry-conforming Delaunay meshes. The former is demonstrated on a two-dimensional anisotropic problem whereas the latter is demonstrated on both 3d and 4d problems. Keywords: Anisotropic mesh generation; metric; Nash embedding theorem; isometric; geometry-conforming; restricted Voronoi diagram; constrained centroidal Voronoi tessellation; Steiner vertices; dimension-independen

The Public’s Case Against DTE Energy: Extracting Profits, inducing health harms, and damaging democracy

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