"compiacimento di purgattissimo conoscimento" - Performing Gesualdo in Mid-Seventeenth Century Rome

The title of the presentation contains two elements: a citation (referring, of course, to Carlo Gesualdo, the then and today praised madrigal composer) and a statement worth discussing, namely that Gesualdo's music was not only known and studied in the 17th century, but that his music was also still performed (at least at a certain time and place). Roman documents from the middle of the 17th century illustrate interesting aspects of performance practice of Gesualdo's madrigals, especially concerning his notorious use of many accidentals, which I call 'vieltönig' (using verbatim 'many pitches') and which is more fully investigated in a recent publication (Martin Kirnbauer, Vieltönige Musik - Spielarten chromatischer und enharmonischer Musik in Rom in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts , Basel 2013). Based on this I would like to argue that especially Gesualdo's madrigals formed the core of a distinguished repertory, which lead to later so-called 'madrigali al tavolino'

The four-minute approach revisited : accelerating MRI-based multi-factorial age estimation

Objectives: This feasibility study aimed to investigate the reliability of multi-factorial age estimation based on MR data of the hand, wisdom teeth and the clavicles with reduced acquisition time. Methods: The raw MR data of 34 volunteers-acquired on a 3T system and using acquisition times (TA) of 3:46 min (hand), 5:29 min (clavicles) and 10:46 min (teeth)-were retrospectively undersampled applying the commercially available CAIPIRINHA technique. Automatic and radiological age estimation methods were applied to the original image data as well as undersampled data to investigate the reliability of age estimates with decreasing acquisition time. Reliability was investigated determining standard deviation (SSD) and mean (MSD) of signed differences, intra-class correlation (ICC) and by performing Bland-Altman analysis. Results: Automatic age estimation generally showed very high reliability (SSD < 0.90 years) even for very short acquisition times (SSD ≈ 0.20 years for a total TA of 4 min). Radiological age estimation provided highly reliable results for images of the hand (ICC ≥ 0.96) and the teeth (ICC ≥ 0.79) for short acquisition times (TA = 16 s for the hand, TA = 2:21 min for the teeth), imaging data of the clavicles allowed for moderate acceleration (TA = 1:25 min, ICC ≥ 0.71). Conclusions: The results demonstrate that reliable multi-factorial age estimation based on MRI of the hand, wisdom teeth and the clavicles can be performed using images acquired with a total acquisition time of 4 min

High-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) screening and detection in healthy patient saliva samples: a pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The human papillomaviruses (HPV) are a large family of non-enveloped DNA viruses, mainly associated with cervical cancers. Recent epidemiologic evidence has suggested that HPV may be an independent risk factor for oropharyngeal cancers. Evidence now suggests HPV may modulate the malignancy process in some tobacco- and alcohol-induced oropharynx tumors, but might also be the primary oncogenic factor for inducing carcinogenesis among some non-smokers. More evidence, however, is needed regarding oral HPV prevalence among healthy adults to estimate risk. The goal of this study was to perform an HPV screening of normal healthy adults to assess oral HPV prevalence.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Healthy adult patients at a US dental school were selected to participate in this pilot study. DNA was isolated from saliva samples and screened for high-risk HPV strains HPV16 and HPV18 and further processed using qPCR for quantification and to confirm analytical sensitivity and specificity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Chi-square analysis revealed the patient sample was representative of the general clinic population with respect to gender, race and age (<it>p </it>< 0.05). Four patient samples were found to harbor HPV16 DNA, representing 2.6% of the total (n = 151). Three of the four HPV16-positive samples were from patients under 65 years of age and all four were female and Hispanic (non-White). No samples tested positive for HPV18.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The successful recruitment and screening of healthy adult patients revealed HPV16, but not HPV18, was present in a small subset. These results provide new information about oral HPV status, which may help to contextualize results from other studies that demonstrate oral cancer rates have risen in the US among both females and minorities and in some geographic areas that are not solely explained by rates of tobacco and alcohol use. The results of this study may be of significant value to further our understanding of oral health and disease risk, as well as to help design future studies exploring the role of other factors that influence oral HPV exposure, as well as the short- and long-term consequences of oral HPV infection.</p

Hartmann Schedel und sein "Liederbuch" : Studien zu einer spätmittelalterlichen Musikhandschrift (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Cgm 810) und ihrem Kontext

Im Zentrum dieser interdisziplinären Studien steht eine Musikhandschrift, die um 1460 von dem später berühmten Nürnberger Humanisten Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) angelegt und in seiner umfangreichen Bibliothek auch überliefert wurde. Schedels Liber musicalis gehört mit über 120 mehrstimmigen Kompositionen im Stile eines Chansonniers zu den bedeutendsten erhaltenen Musikalien jener Zeit und Region. Eine historiographische Analyse der Forschungsgeschichte zeigt aber, warum diese Quelle bislang kaum ausgewertet wurde. Biographische sowie codicologisch-paläographische Untersuchungen führen zu einer lückenlosen Rekonstruktion ihrer Entstehung und Überlieferung, aber auch zu einem überraschenden Kontext für eine private Musikalie im 15. Jahrhundert. Zentral sind Schedels Bibliothek und damit Aspekte eines umgreifenden Sammelns und Kopierens. Die Merkmale seiner Abschreibetechnik verweisen auf eine „tradition typographique“, die die Basis für eine inhaltliche Interpretation der oft schwer verständlichen Aufzeichnungen bildet. – Die Quelle stellt sich als Produkt einer primär schriftlichen Überlieferung von Musik dar, die nur sehr zurückhaltend in Hinblick auf eine Musikpraxis gelesen werden kann. Hingegen erweist sie sich als ergiebiger Gegenstand für exemplarische Fragen nach dem medialen Charakter einer Musikhandschrift aus der Schwellenzeit zwischen der schwindenden Handschriften- und beginnenden Druckkultur