Fagotte forgotten? the bassoon in the early symphonies of Mozart, Haydn and contemporaries in the 1760s and 1770s

This research project investigates the role of the bassoon in the basso of the early symphonies of Mozart, Haydn and Contemporaries in the 1760s and 1770s. It draws on surviving primary source material pertaining to bassoonists and orchestral practices across Europe before 1780. Autograph scores of Haydn, Mozart and his contemporaries usually scored early Classical symphonies for pairs of oboes, horns, two violin sections, viola and basso. Modern scholars have described these compositions as symphonies for pairs of oboes, pairs of horns and strings, and have translated basso to mean cellos and basses. Eliminating the eighteenth-century term basso has also removed bassoons from the bass section of the early Classical orchestra. The socioeconomic and aesthetic scene at the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century is discussed in order to envisage the world in which eighteenth-century bassoonists worked. From this contextual mindset, hypotheses about how bassoonists performed from the generic basso parts are tested against evidence from a variety of surviving sources. Convincing evidence shows the bassoon to be a valuable addition to the basso, adding timbral variation, clarity of articulation and support to the harmonic foundation. In the undertaking of this research, a complete set of orchestral parts was discovered in an Austrian monastery. This is a significant find because the parts were most likely created from Mozart’s autograph, written out by a Viennese copyist frequently employed by Mozart. This previously unstudied set of parts for the A major symphony KV201 uncovers historic performance practice of how a bassoon plays the basso line. The significance of the findings are explicated in a hypothetical concert series

Faxen relations in solids - a generalized approach to particle motion in elasticity and viscoelasticity

A movable inclusion in an elastic material oscillates as a rigid body with six degrees of freedom. Displacement/rotation and force/moment tensors which express the motion of the inclusion in terms of the displacement and force at arbitrary exterior points are introduced. Using reciprocity arguments two general identities are derived relating these tensors. Applications of the identities to spherical particles provide several new results, including simple expressions for the force and moment on the particle due to plane wave excitation.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Structural glycobiology by NMR and molecular modelling: ligand recognition by the carbohydrate active proteins LYVE-1, SseK1/2 and PsLBP

The term carbohydrate-active protein (CAP) encompasses the group of proteins that either act as carbohydrate receptors (e.g. lectins) or enzymatically catalyse reactions involving carbohydrates as at least one of their substrates (e.g. glycosyltransferases). The fundamental importance of CAPs has only been realised over the past few decades, with carbohydrates playing a profound role in cellular signalling, adhesion and migration. Furthermore, carbohydrates are routinely used by pathogens in immune evasion and to modify host function, and changes in glycosylation patterns are associated with a range of disease states, including cancer and inflammation. However, the study of CAP-carbohydrate interactions has been challenging, in part due to the inherently low affinity of many CAP-carbohydrate interactions that precluded detection by many techniques and make it difficult to obtained experimentally derived structures of their complexes. Fortunately, STD NMR spectroscopy is ideally suited to detecting weak interactions of this nature and provides structural information about the interaction through ligand epitope mapping. Furthermore, quantitative analysis of STD intensities allows three-dimensional models of the validated in the solution state, whether these models be derived from experiment or molecular modelling. Within this thesis, a combination of STD NMR spectroscopy and molecular modelling has been used to unravel structural and dynamic detail of CAP-ligand interactions in three biologically or industrially relevant systems - (1) CD44/LYVE-1 which may play a role in cell trafficking across the lymphatics in cancer; (2) PsLBP which may lead to new developments in the field of enzymatic carbohydrate synthesis; (3) SseK1/2 which exhibit a novel enzymatic mechanism involving glycosylation of arginine residues and may be involved in Salmonella virulence

Dragon Tourism in Komodo National Park, Indonesia: Its Contribution to Conservation & Local Development

Tourism is the world's largest industry and is widely promoted as a panacea for sustainable development in developing countries. Nature tourism to protected areas is viewed as an ecologically sustainable means to offset the costs of annexation for governments and local communities. The rapid development of 'ecotourism' as a benign and beneficial form of nature tourism has occured with little examination of its true impact. This study adopted a multi-disciplinary approach to examine whether nature tourism based on Komodo National Park (KNP), Indonesia, conformed to the accepted definition of ecotourism as ecologically, economically and socially sustainable at a local level. It also examined whether different types of tourist have different impacts on conservation and local development. The findings suggest that tourism to KNP does not achieve the ideals of ecotourism. Although ecological disturbance was minimal, the financial contribution to conservation barely offset the costs of tourism for KNP, and could be substantially increased by raising entrance and other fees. Contributions to the local economy were small relative to total expenditure on visits to KNP, and benefits accruing to village communities within KNP, which bear the greatest opportunity costs, were negligible. Independent tourists contributed the most to the local economy, whilst package tourists contributed very little. Cruise passengers, the most affluent visitors to KNP, contributed virtually nothing due to the enclave nature of cruise operations. The limitations of current tourism development in and around KNP reflect traditional patterns of tourism evolution rather than a reorientation towards ecotourism. Continued evaluation will be necessary to ensure that future development adheres to sustainable principles. This study has provided a template for rapid, cost effective evaluations of nature-based tourism which could be implemented elsewhere

Unbound states of 32Cl and the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate

The 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction is expected to provide the dominant break-out path from the SiP cycle in novae and is important for understanding enrichments of sulfur observed in some nova ejecta. We studied the 32S(3He,t)32Cl charge-exchange reaction to determine properties of proton-unbound levels in 32Cl that have previously contributed significant uncertainties to the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate. Measured triton magnetic rigidities were used to determine excitation energies in 32Cl. Proton-branching ratios were obtained by detecting decay protons from unbound 32Cl states in coincidence with tritons. An improved 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate was calculated including robust statistical and systematic uncertainties

Guiding neutral atoms around curves with lithographically patterned current-carrying wires

Laser-cooled neutral atoms from a low-velocity atomic source are guided via a magnetic field generated between two parallel wires on a glass substrate. The atoms bend around three curves, each with a 15-cm radius of curvature, while traveling along a 10-cm-long track. A maximum flux of 2*10^6 atoms/sec is achieved with a current density of 3*10^4 A/cm^2 in the 100x100-micrometer-cross-section wires. The kinetic energy of the guided atoms in one transverse dimension is measured to be 42 microKelvin.Comment: 9 page

Attractiveness of periodic orbits in parametrically forced systemswith time-increasing friction

We consider dissipative one-dimensional systems subject to a periodic force and study numerically how a time-varying friction affects the dynamics. As a model system, particularly suited for numerical analysis, we investigate the driven cubic oscillator in the presence of friction. We find that, if the damping coefficient increases in time up to a final constant value, then the basins of attraction of the leading resonances are larger than they would have been if the coefficient had been fixed at that value since the beginning. From a quantitative point of view, the scenario depends both on the final value and the growth rate of the damping coefficient. The relevance of the results for the spin-orbit model are discussed in some detail.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figure

The intrinsically disordered Tarp protein from chlamydia binds actin with a partially preformed helix

Tarp (translocated actin recruiting phosphoprotein) is an effector protein common to all chlamydial species that functions to remodel the host-actin cytoskeleton during the initial stage of infection. In C. trachomatis, direct binding to actin monomers has been broadly mapped to a 100-residue region (726-825) which is predicted to be predominantly disordered, with the exception of a ~10-residue α helical patch homologous to other WH2 actin-binding motifs. Biophysical investigations demonstrate that a Tarp726-825 construct behaves as a typical intrinsically disordered protein; within it, NMR relaxation measurements and chemical shift analysis identify the ten residue WH2-homologous region to exhibit partial α-helix formation. Isothermal titration calorimetry experiments on the same construct in the presence of monomeric G-actin show a well defined binding event with a 1:1 stoichiometry and Kd of 102 nM, whilst synchrotron radiation circular dichroism spectroscopy suggests the binding is concomitant with an increase in helical secondary structure. Furthermore, NMR experiments in the presence of G-actin indicate this interaction affects the proposed WH2-like α-helical region, supporting results from in silico docking calculations which suggest that, when folded, this α helix binds within the actin hydrophobic cleft as seen for other actin-associated proteins