Frontiers, Borders, Boundaries: Cross-Cultural Encounters in the New York City Reception of La fanciulla del West

This dissertation maps the responses to the world premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (10 December 1910, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City). It seeks to arrive at a deeper understanding of the opera’s ambivalent reception in the New York City musical press. From the vantage point of national musical identity, it analyzes the argumentation of the reviews and articles in the New York City newspapers from 1905-1911 and determines the themes and patterns that connect them. It then places the critical commentary into the larger contexts of both the New York City opera field of 1910 and the discourse of the American Frontier Myth. Critics carefully negotiated conflicting views of personal, national, and musical identities in their assessments of this work. The early twentieth-century concern over the development of an American musical identity motivates much of the negative criticism about La fanciulla del West, while cosmopolitanism drives much of the positive criticism. The reviews offer a window into nativism and cosmopolitan nationalism in New York City musical life during the first decade of the twentieth century

Readability and Suitability of COPD Consumer Information

Copyright © 2017 Kathryn Fullmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Peer ReviewedBackground. Information leaflets have been shown to positively or negatively impact adherence, depending on their content. The objective of this study was to perform an appraisal of the consumer information provided in COPD inhaler monographs. Methods. COPD inhalers were identified from the Health Canada Drug Product Database. Medication information and instructions for inhaler use were analyzed for readability by seven formulas, with an acceptability threshold of grades 6–8. Three researchers rated suitability using a modified Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM) tool and assessed leaflets for explicit warnings. Results. Twenty-six inhalers with a COPD indication were evaluated. Medication information sections were rated as “difficult to read” or “hard,” and 85% (22/26) had a reading level above grade 8. The instructions for inhaler use were rated as “easy” or “fairly easy” to read and 63% (16/26) met the threshold by all formulas. While all leaflets achieved superior suitability ratings, extreme warnings included risk of premature death (), risks of serious injury (), serious interactions (), and statements that convey a serious consequence to therapy (). Conclusion. While COPD information leaflets in Canada performed well in terms of readability and suitability, overemphasis on side effects, warnings, and precautions may contribute to patient fear and nonadherence

Estimating the weight of ethnically diverse children attending an Australian emergency department: a prospective, blinded, comparison of age-based and length-based tools including Mercy, PAWPER and Broselow

Objective To prospectively compare the actual weights of Australian children in an ethnically diverse metropolitan setting with the predicted weights using the Paediatric Advanced Weight Prediction in the Emergency Room (PAWPER) tape, Broselow tape, Mercy system and calculated weights using the updated Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS), Luscombe and Owens and Best Guess formulae. Methods A prospective, cross-sectional, observational, blinded, convenience study conducted at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead Paediatric Emergency Department in Sydney, Australia. Comparisons were made using Bland-Altman plots, mean difference, limits of agreement and estimated weight within 10% and 20% of actual weight. Results 199 patients were enrolled in the study with a mean actual weight of 27.2 kg (SD 17.2). Length-based tools, with or without body habitus adjustment, performed better than age-based formulae. When measuring estimated weight within 10% of actual weight, PAWPER performed best with 73%, followed by Mercy (69%), PAWPER with no adjustment (62%), Broselow (60%), Best Guess (47%), Luscombe and Owens (41%) and revised APLS (40%). Mean difference was similar across all methods ranging from 0.4 kg (0.0, 0.9) for Mercy to −2.2 kg (−3.5, −0.9) for revised APLS. Limits of agreement were narrower for the lengthbased tools (−5.9, 6.8 Mercy; −8.3, 5.6 Broselow; −9.0, 7.1 PAWPER adjusted; −12.1, 9.2 PAWPER unadjusted) than the age-based formulae (−18.6, 17.4 Best Guess; −19.4, 15.1 revised APLS, −21.8, 17.7 Luscombe and Owens). Conclusion In an ethnically diverse population, lengthbased methods with or without body habitus modification are superior to age-based methods for predicting actual body weight. Body habitus modifications increase the accuracy and precision slightly

Student use of electronic information services in further education

This paper presents a profile of user behaviour in relation to the use of electronic information services (EIS), information skills, and the role of training and wider learning experiences in UK further education colleges. The research was conducted under the JISC User Behaviour Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. Work was conducted in two strands, by two project teams, JUSTEIS and JUBILEE. JUSTEIS profiled the use of EIS and assessed the availability of EIS. JUBILEE objectives focussed on understanding the barriers and enablers, with a view to developing success criteria. JUSTEIS used a multi-stage stratified sampling process, and collected data from 270 respondents from 17 departments in the baseline survey (2001/2002). JUBILEE conducted in-depth fieldwork in five institutions and snapshot fieldwork in 10 institutions, collecting data from 528 respondents. Information skills and experience develop across work, home and study. There is a growing use of EIS in curriculum, but practice varies between institutions and disciplines. Tutors express concern about student's ability to evaluate and use the information that they find. Assignments can promote EIS use. The main categories of EIS used by students are search engines and organisational web sites. Search engines are the preferred search tools and search strategies are basic. Information skills are acquired through a variety of routes, with peer instruction, surfing and personal experience, instruction from tutors, and LIS induction and training all making an important contribution. The solutions to improving students’ information skills may include use of the Virtual Training Suites, but librarians need to adopt different roles in promoting and evaluating use of such tools

Genomic underpinnings of head and body shape in Arctic charr ecomorph pairs

Across its Holarctic range, Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) populations have diverged into distinct trophic specialists across independent replicate lakes. The major aspect of divergence between ecomorphs is in head shape and body shape, which are ecomorphological traits reflecting niche use. However, whether the genomic underpinnings of these parallel divergences are consistent across replicates was unknown but key for resolving the substrate of parallel evolution. We investigated the genomic basis of head shape and body shape morphology across four benthivore–planktivore ecomorph pairs of Arctic charr in Scotland. Through genome-wide association analyses, we found genomic regions associated with head shape (89 SNPs) or body shape (180 SNPs) separately and 50 of these SNPs were strongly associated with both body and head shape morphology. For each trait separately, only a small number of SNPs were shared across all ecomorph pairs (3 SNPs for head shape and 10 SNPs for body shape). Signs of selection on the associated genomic regions varied across pairs, consistent with evolutionary demography differing considerably across lakes. Using a comprehensive database of salmonid QTLs newly augmented and mapped to a charr genome, we found several of the head- and body-shape-associated SNPs were within or near morphology QTLs from other salmonid species, reflecting a shared genetic basis for these phenotypes across species. Overall, our results demonstrate how parallel ecotype divergences can have both population-specific and deeply shared genomic underpinnings across replicates, influenced by differences in their environments and demographic histories

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Pain Management for Veterans Seeking Service-Connection Payments for Musculoskeletal Disorders: SBIRT-PM Study Protocol

BACKGROUND: Veterans with significant chronic pain from musculoskeletal disorders are at risk of substance misuse. Veterans whose condition is the result of military service may be eligible for a disability pension. Department of Veterans Affairs compensation examinations, which determine the degree of disability and whether it was connected to military service, represent an opportunity to engage Veterans in pain management and substance use treatments. A multisite randomized clinical trial is testing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Pain Management (SBIRT-PM) for Veterans seeking compensation for musculoskeletal disorders. This telephone-based intervention is delivered through a hub-and-spoke configuration. DESIGN: This study is a two-arm, parallel-group, 36-week, multisite randomized controlled single-blind trial. It will randomize 1,100 Veterans experiencing pain and seeking service-connection for musculoskeletal disorders to either SBIRT-PM or usual care across eight New England VA medical centers. The study balances pragmatic with explanatory methodological features. Primary outcomes are pain severity and number of substances misused. Nonpharmacological pain management and substance use services utilization are tracked in the trial. SUMMARY: Early trial enrollment targets were met across sites. SBIRT-PM could help Veterans, at the time of their compensation claims, use multimodal pain treatments and reduce existing substance misuse. Strategies to address COVID-19 pandemic impacts on the SBIRT-PM protocol have been developed to maintain its pragmatic and exploratory integrity

Field Measurements of Terrestrial and Martian Dust Devils

Surface-based measurements of terrestrial and martian dust devils/convective vortices provided from mobile and stationary platforms are discussed. Imaging of terrestrial dust devils has quantified their rotational and vertical wind speeds, translation speeds, dimensions, dust load, and frequency of occurrence. Imaging of martian dust devils has provided translation speeds and constraints on dimensions, but only limited constraints on vertical motion within a vortex. The longer mission durations on Mars afforded by long operating robotic landers and rovers have provided statistical quantification of vortex occurrence (time-of-sol, and recently seasonal) that has until recently not been a primary outcome of more temporally limited terrestrial dust devil measurement campaigns. Terrestrial measurement campaigns have included a more extensive range of measured vortex parameters (pressure, wind, morphology, etc.) than have martian opportunities, with electric field and direct measure of dust abundance not yet obtained on Mars. No martian robotic mission has yet provided contemporaneous high frequency wind and pressure measurements. Comparison of measured terrestrial and martian dust devil characteristics suggests that martian dust devils are larger and possess faster maximum rotational wind speeds, that the absolute magnitude of the pressure deficit within a terrestrial dust devil is an order of magnitude greater than a martian dust devil, and that the time-of-day variation in vortex frequency is similar. Recent terrestrial investigations have demonstrated the presence of diagnostic dust devil signals within seismic and infrasound measurements; an upcoming Mars robotic mission will obtain similar measurement types

Relationship between Spatial Working Memory Performance and Diet Specialization in Two Sympatric Nectar Bats

Behavioural ecologists increasingly recognise spatial memory as one the most influential cognitive traits involved in evolutionary processes. In particular, spatial working memory (SWM), i.e. the ability of animals to store temporarily useful information for current foraging tasks, determines the foraging efficiency of individuals. As a consequence, SWM also has the potential to influence competitive abilities and to affect patterns of sympatric occurrence among closely related species. The present study aims at comparing the efficiency of SWM between generalist (Glossophaga soricina) and specialist (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) nectarivorous bats at flowering patches. The two species differ in diet – the generalist diet including seasonally fruits and insects with nectar and pollen while the specialist diet is dominated by nectar and pollen yearlong – and in some morphological traits – the specialist being heavier and with proportionally longer rostrum than the generalist. These bats are found sympatrically within part of their range in the Neotropics. We habituated captive individuals to feed on artificial flower patches and we used infrared video recordings to monitor their ability to remember and avoid the spatial location of flowers they emptied in previous visits in the course of 15-min foraging sequences. Experiments revealed that both species rely on SWM as their foraging success attained significantly greater values than random expectations. However, the nectar specialist L. yerbabuenae was significantly more efficient at extracting nectar (+28% in foraging success), and sustained longer foraging bouts (+27% in length of efficient foraging sequences) than the generalist G. soricina. These contrasting SWM performances are discussed in relation to diet specialization and other life history traits