Harmonic organisation conveys both universal and culture-specific cues for emotional expression in music

Previous research conducted on the cross-cultural perception of music and its emotional content has established that emotions can be communicated across cultures at least on a rudimentary level. Here, we report a cross-cultural study with participants originating from two tribes in northwest Pakistan (Khow and Kalash) and the United Kingdom, with both groups being naïve to the music of the other respective culture. We explored how participants assessed emotional connotations of various Western and non-Western harmonisation styles, and whether cultural familiarity with a harmonic idiom such as major and minor mode would consistently relate to emotion communication. The results indicate that Western concepts of harmony are not relevant for participants unexposed to Western music when other emotional cues (tempo, pitch height, articulation, timbre) are kept relatively constant. At the same time, harmonic style alone has the ability to colour the emotional expression in music if it taps the appropriate cultural connotations. The preference for one harmonisation style over another, including the major-happy/minor-sad distinction, is influenced by culture. Finally, our findings suggest that although differences emerge across different harmonisation styles, acoustic roughness influences the expression of emotion in similar ways across cultures; preference for consonance however seems to be dependent on cultural familiarity

Surface plasmon toy-model of a rotating black hole

Recently introduced surface plasmon toy black hole model has been extended in order to emulate a rotating black hole (Kerr metric). Physical realization of this model involves a droplet of an optically active liquid on the metal surface which supports propagation of surface plasmons. Such droplets are shown to exhibit giant optical activity in the frequency range near the surface plasmon resonance of a metal-liquid interface.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Does the frequency of follow-up assessments affect clinical trial outcome? A meta-analysis and meta-regression of placebo-controlled randomized trials

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Skin rash associated with intravitreal bevacizumab in a patient with macular choroidal neovascularization

Ioannis D Ladas, Marilita M Moschos, Thanos D Papakostas, Athanasios I Kotsolis, Ilias Georgalas, Michail ApostolopoulosDepartment of Ophthalmology, “G. Gennimatas” Hospital of Athens, University of Athens, Athens, GreecePurpose: The purpose of this observational case report is to describe a case of skin rash after intravitreal use of bevacizumab.Methods: A 50-year-old man with choroidal neovascularization in the right eye due to age-related macular degeneration was treated with three intravitreal injections of bevacizumab.Results: Twelve days after the first injection, the patient developed a maculopapular rash on his forehead and on both temporal regions around his eyes. The rash disappeared eight days after treatment with topical corticosteroids. A skin rash with the same distribution reappeared 14 days after the second and 10 days after the third injection. Similarly, it disappeared five and seven days after the use of the same treatment. The follow-up period was 15 months after the third injection. During the follow-up period the rash did not reappear.Conclusion: This case report may initiate further investigation of similar cases to support this observation, as there are a lack of reports of skin rash after intravitreal administration of bevacizumab.Keywords: skin rash, bevacizumab, age-related macular degeneratio

Arthroplasty versus internal fixation for femoral neck fractures in the elderly

We studied 140 patients with femoral neck fractures treated from January 1999 to December 2006. There were 68 men and 72 women with a mean age of 72 years (range 60–80 years). Seventy patients were treated with closed reduction and internal fixation (group A), and 70 patients with hip arthroplasty (group B). The duration of surgery, length of hospitalization, complications, postoperative Harris hip score, and need for reoperation were recorded. Group B had significantly higher blood loss, increased surgical time and length of hospitalization compared to group A patients. The Harris hip score was significantly higher in group B at the 3, 6, and 12-month follow-up evaluations; however, the differences were no longer significant at the 24-month evaluation. The overall complications rate was 18.6% (13 patients) in group A compared to 25.7% (18 patients) in group B; this was not statistically significant (P = 0.309). A statistically significant difference was found regarding reoperation rate in group A (11.4%, eight patients) compared to group B (1.4%, one patient) (P = 0.016). Arthroplasty compared to internal fixation for displaced femoral neck fractures is associated with a significantly higher functional score and lower risk of reoperation at the cost of greater infection rates, blood loss, and operative time

Harmonic organisation conveys both universal and culture-specific cues for emotional expression in music

Previous research conducted on the cross-cultural perception of music and its emotional content has established that emotions can be communicated across cultures at least on a rudimentary level. Here, we report a cross-cultural study with participants originating from two tribes in northwest Pakistan (Khow and Kalash) and the United Kingdom, with both groups being naïve to the music of the other respective culture. We explored how participants assessed emotional connotations of various Western and non-Western harmonisation styles, and whether cultural familiarity with a harmonic idiom such as major and minor mode would consistently relate to emotion communication. The results indicate that Western concepts of harmony are not relevant for participants unexposed to Western music when other emotional cues (tempo, pitch height, articulation, timbre) are kept relatively constant. At the same time, harmonic style alone has the ability to colour the emotional expression in music if it taps the appropriate cultural connotations. The preference for one harmonisation style over another, including the major-happy/minor-sad distinction, is influenced by culture. Finally, our findings suggest that although differences emerge across different harmonisation styles, acoustic roughness influences the expression of emotion in similar ways across cultures; preference for consonance however seems to be dependent on cultural familiarity