Revisiting the early format of the big band: So you want to be a band leader?

The aims of this research are to set up a large contemporary ensemble that plays varied repertoire in different performance contexts and may generate at the same time, a vehicle for my composition and arranging. Involved within the research are strategies to increase the musical and performance skills of the musicians, to break down barriers between the audience and performers, to look at ways to include I promote/ increase/ audience participation, to work with the community, and find opportunities for paid employment for big band situations. Aspects of New Orleans brass bands, the Duke Ellington\u27s and Count Basie\u27s Orchestra\u27s will be investigated to determine if and how the concepts of their styles can be adapted to my own music to create something valid for today\u27s situation in a city like Perth, Western Australia

Educationalizing Assets: Framing Children’s Savings Accounts As An Educational Solution

This qualitative study explores the case of Children’s Savings Accounts or CSAs (also called Child Development Accounts or CDAs) by constructing a case study that includes both the national landscape of CSAs and a focal CSA program. Through a corpus of over 150 texts related to CSAs, 30 semi-structured interviews with proponents and supporters, and participant observation of CSA meetings and conferences and program activities for over one year, this study explores the role of framing and cultural discourses in making CSAs more focused on education. This shift occurred in how proponents talk about them, frame them, and how they are implemented. Though proponents initially framed CSAs as solving problems of welfare and poverty in the early 1990s, over the last three decades, proponents shifted toward framing CSAs in terms of educational aspirations and attainment. This educational aspiration frame resonates with cultural discourses about education and social mobility and serves to create consensus among diverse policy designs across the national landscape of CSA programs. Proponents today frame CSAs as a solution for educational problems such as racialized achievement gaps. This framing shapes the meaning of CSAs and their implementation: schools are seen as crucial partners as CSAs attempt to build ‘college-bound identity’ and metrics like academic achievement are proposed for judging the success of CSAs for changing students’ orientation toward their futures. This case illuminates the role of framing and discourse in the process of educationalization, wherein broader social problems are transformed into educational problems and the implications of this process for the organizational structures and practices. These practices elaborate and institutionalize CSAs in particular ways. This study contributes conceptually to identifying mechanisms of educationalization and implications of educational frames ‘winning out’ over other alternative frames for new social policies

Coriander yield decline: potential management options

Crop yield decline is increasingly associated with the intensive practices of modern agriculture. It affects a wide range of crops, including Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.), the UK’s most economically important herb. The crop suffers from a particularly severe form of decline, which can reduce yields by 50%. Unlike other widely grown crops, the growth of coriander in the UK has not been optimised, and growers use highly variable practices. The main aim of this study was to investigate crop and soil management techniques which could reduce coriander yield decline: e.g., different depths of tillage, various sowing densities, and the desiccation or sterilisation of crop soils. Glasshouse pot trials were used to assess the efficacy of these practices at reducing yield decline in successive coriander crops. Results showed reduced levels of decline when soils were: harrowed (compared to unharrowed), and sown at a ‘medium’ density (compared to a relatively low or high density). Coriander grown for a second cycle under a set of ‘optimum growth’ conditions still experienced some decline, suggesting a level of microbial involvement.To investigate the potential involvement of soil microbes, soil desiccation and soil sterilisation were assessed as soil management techniques. Desiccation of crop soils after one cycle of crop growth prevented yield decline in a subsequent crop. Additionally, sterilisation of field soils (showing severe decline symptoms) produced 50% greater yields per pot and 70% larger plants, compared to a crop grown in nonsterilised field soils. MinION nanopore sequencing (16S and ITS barcode approach) was used to facilitate a microbial community study. Identifications were made for fungal and bacterial taxa of rhizosphere and bulk soils in a grower’s field soils and in soils from the glasshouse desiccation experiment. Results showed a defined shift in fungal taxa between healthy and yield decline samples. Overall results indicated a multifactorial problem, with the likely involvement of deleterious soil microorganisms. The next stages of investigation should be to assess the efficacy of a set of management strategies and optimised growth parameters in a field trial environment. Greater replication and further study are needed to elucidate the microbiological mechanisms of coriander yield decline, including potentially identifying specific associated microorganisms

Intra-dance variation among waggle runs and the design of efficient protocols for honey bee dance decoding

Noise is universal in information transfer. In animal communication, this presents a challenge not only for intended signal receivers, but also to biologists studying the system. In honey bees, a forager communicates to nestmates the location of an important resource via the waggle dance. This vibrational signal is composed of repeating units (waggle runs) that are then averaged by nestmates to derive a single vector. Manual dance decoding is a powerful tool for studying bee foraging ecology, although the process is time-consuming: a forager may repeat the waggle run 1- >100 times within a dance. It is impractical to decode all of these to obtain the vector; however, intra-dance waggle runs vary, so it is important to decode enough to obtain a good average. Here we examine the variation among waggle runs made by foraging bees to devise a method of dance decoding. The first and last waggle runs within a dance are significantly more variable than the middle run. There was no trend in variation for the middle waggle runs. We recommend that any four consecutive waggle runs, not including the first and last runs, may be decoded, and we show that this methodology is suitable by demonstrating the goodness-of-fit between the decoded vectors from our subsamples with the vectors from the entire dances

Phosphonopeptides Revisited, in an Era of Increasing Antimicrobial Resistance

Given the increase in resistance to antibacterial agents, there is an urgent need for the development of new agents with novel modes of action. As an interim solution, it is also prudent to reinvestigate old or abandoned antibacterial compounds to assess their efficacy in the context of widespread resistance to conventional agents. In the 1970s, much work was performed on the development of peptide mimetics, exemplified by the phosphonopeptide, alafosfalin. We investigated the activity of alafosfalin, di-alanyl fosfalin and β-chloro-L-alanyl-β-chloro-L-alanine against 297 bacterial isolates, including carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) (n = 128), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (n = 37) and glycopeptide-resistant enterococci (GRE) (n = 43). The interaction of alafosfalin with meropenem was also examined against 20 isolates of CPE. The MIC50 and MIC90 of alafosfalin for CPE were 1 mg/L and 4 mg/L, respectively and alafosfalin acted synergistically when combined with meropenem against 16 of 20 isolates of CPE. Di-alanyl fosfalin showed potent activity against glycopeptide-resistant isolates of Enterococcus faecalis (MIC90; 0.5 mg/L) and Enterococcus faecium (MIC90; 2 mg/L). Alafosfalin was only moderately active against MRSA (MIC90; 8 mg/L), whereas β-chloro-L-alanyl-β-chloro-L-alanine was slightly more active (MIC90; 4 mg/L). This study shows that phosphonopeptides, including alafosfalin, may have a therapeutic role to play in an era of increasing antibacterial resistance

Supporting the learning of deaf students in higher education: a case study at Sheffield Hallam University

This article is an examination of the issues surrounding support for the learning of deaf students in higher education (HE). There are an increasing number of deaf students attending HE institutes, and as such provision of support mechanisms for these students is not only necessary but essential. Deaf students are similar to their hearing peers, in that they will approach their learning and require differing levels of support dependant upon the individual. They will, however, require a different kind of support, which can be technical or human resource based. This article examines the issues that surround supporting deaf students in HE with use of a case study of provision at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), during the academic year 1994-95. It is evident that by considering the needs of deaf students and making changes to our teaching practices that all students can benefit

Enantioselective Synthesis of a Hydroxymethyl-cis-1,3-cyclopentenediol Building Block

A brief, enantioselective synthesis of a hydroxymethyl-cis-1,3-cyclopentenediol building block is presented. This scaffold allows access to the cis-1,3-cyclopentanediol fragments found in a variety of biologically active natural and non-natural products. This rapid and efficient synthesis is highlighted by the utilization of the palladium-catalyzed enantioselective allylic alkylation of dioxanone substrates to prepare tertiary alcohols

Henoch Schonlein Purpura – A 5-Year Review and Proposed Pathway

Henoch Schonlein Purpura (HSP) is the commonest systemic vasculitis of childhood typically presenting with a palpable purpuric rash and frequently involving the renal system. We are the first group to clinically assess, critically analyse and subsequently revise a nurse led monitoring pathway for this condition