Contemplating E-Scores: Open Ruminations on the E-Score, the Patron, the Library, and the Publisher

For several years now, libraries, publishers, and vendors have worked out a means of creating, licensing, and delivering e-books in academic settings. While the art of the academic e-book is perhaps not quite yet perfected, conservatively speaking, today’s students and faculty will find and use at least one e-book in the course of their academic career and be more or less satisfied with the experience. E-scores, however, are only now coming to occupy the attention of librarians and not a moment too soon as commercial e-score vendors with subpar quality content manage to meet the functionality needs of most users. Many living composers are harnessing the Internet and cutting out the middle man by offering e-scores in the form of downloadable PDFs. Score publishers are, by and large, still in the early stages of thinking about moving to e-score format (also for personal downloads), and vendors with e-score platforms are negligible. This paper opened the conversation about e-scores to acquisition librarians, e-book publishers, and vendors who typically work outside the music library. The first half of this paper provides an overview of the current state of e-scores in academic libraries, including what patrons want from e-scores, what score publishers are doing, what libraries are currently able to provide, and, finally, what commercial vendors are already doing. The final portion of the paper briefly reviews responses from the conference session audience. Through this open questioning, it is hoped that readers will come to new understandings of their own work with other electronic materials, while at the same time bring their expertise to bear on the future of e-score development

No Indications of Axion-Like Particles From Fermi

As very high energy (~100 GeV) gamma rays travel over cosmological distances, their flux is attenuated through interactions with the extragalactic background light. Observations of distant gamma ray sources at energies between ~200 GeV and a few TeV by ground-based gamma ray telescopes such as HESS, however, suggest that the universe is more transparent to very high energy photons than had been anticipated. One possible explanation for this is the existence of axion-like-particles (ALPs) which gamma rays can efficiently oscillate into, enabling them to travel cosmological distances without attenuation. In this article, we use data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope to calculate the spectra at 1-100 GeV of two gamma ray sources, 1ES1101-232 at redshift z=0.186 and H2356-309 at z=0.165, and use this in conjunction with the measurements of ground-based telescopes to test the ALP hypothesis. We find that the observations can be well-fit by an intrinsic power-law source spectrum with indices of -1.72 and -2.1 for 1ES1101-232 and H2356-309, respectively, and that no ALPs or other exotic physics is necessary to explain the observed degree of attenuation.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. v3: Matches published version, the analysis of H2356-309 is revised, no change in conclusion

High Energy Positrons From Annihilating Dark Matter

Recent preliminary results from the PAMELA experiment indicate the presence of an excess of cosmic ray positrons above 10 GeV. In this letter, we consider possibility that this signal is the result of dark matter annihilations taking place in the halo of the Milky Way. Rather than focusing on a specific particle physics model, we take a phenomenological approach and consider a variety of masses and two-body annihilation modes, including W+W-, ZZ, b bbar, tau+ tau-, mu+ mu-, and e+e. We also consider a range of diffusion parameters consistent with current cosmic ray data. We find that a significant upturn in the positron fraction above 10 GeV is compatible with a wide range of dark matter annihilation modes, although very large annihilation cross sections and/or boost factors arising from inhomogeneities in the local dark matter distribution are required to produce the observed intensity of the signal. We comment on constraints from gamma rays, synchrotron emission, and cosmic ray antiproton measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Katrina Works: A Bibliography of Musical Works Composed in Response to Hurricane Katrina

A bibliography of art music composed in response to Hurricane Katrina from 2005-2015

Dark Matter Annihilation in The Galactic Center As Seen by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope

We analyze the first two years of data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope from the direction of the inner 10 degrees around the Galactic Center with the intention of constraining, or finding evidence of, annihilating dark matter. We find that the morphology and spectrum of the emission between 1.25 degrees and 10 degrees from the Galactic Center is well described by a the processes of decaying pions produced in cosmic ray collisions with gas, and the inverse Compton scattering of cosmic ray electrons in both the disk and bulge of the Inner Galaxy, along with gamma rays from known points sources in the region. The observed spectrum and morphology of the emission within approximately 1.25 degrees (~175 parsecs) of the Galactic Center, in contrast, departs from the expectations for by these processes. Instead, we find an additional component of gamma ray emission that is highly concentrated around the Galactic Center. The observed morphology of this component is consistent with that predicted from annihilating dark matter with a cusped (and possibly adiabatically contracted) halo distribution (density proportional to r^{-gamma}, with gamma=1.18 to 1.33). The observed spectrum of this component, which peaks at energies between 1-4 GeV (in E^2 units), can be well fit by a 7-10 GeV dark matter particle annihilating primarily to tau leptons with a cross section in the range of 4.6 x 10^-27 to 5.3 x 10^-26 cm^3/s, depending on how the dark matter distribution is normalized. We also discuss other sources for this emission, including the possibility that much of it originates from the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figure

Systematic overview of economic evaluations of health-related rehabilitation

Background: Health related rehabilitation is instrumental in improving functioning and promoting participation by people with disabilities. To make clinical and policy decisions about health-related rehabilitation, resource allocation and cost issues need to be considered. Objectives: To conduct an overview of systematic reviews (SRs) on economic evaluations of health-related rehabilitation. Methods: We searched multiple databases to identify relevant SRs of economic evaluations of health-related rehabilitation. Review quality was assessed by AMSTAR checklist. Results: We included 64 SRs, most of which included economic evaluations alongside randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The review quality was low to moderate (AMSTAR score 5-8) in 35, and high (score 9-11) in 29 of the included SRs. The included SRs addressed various health conditions, including spinal or other pain conditions (n=14), age-related problems (11), stroke (7), musculoskeletal disorders (6), heart diseases (4), pulmonary (3), mental health problems (3), and injury (3). Physiotherapy was the most commonly evaluated rehabilitation intervention in the included SRs (n=24). Other commonly evaluated interventions included multidisciplinary programmes (14); behavioural, educational or psychological interventions (11); home-based interventions (11); complementary therapy (6); self-management (6); and occupational therapy (4). Conclusions: Although the available evidence is often described as limited, inconsistent or inconclusive, some rehabilitation interventions were cost-effective or showed cost-saving in a variety of disability conditions. Available evidence comes predominantly from high income countries, therefore economic evaluations of health-related rehabilitation are urgently required in less resourced settings

ASSESSING FAMILY CAREGIVING: A COMPARISON OF THREE RETROSPECTIVE PARENTIFICATION MEASURES

Despite the frequent use of the Parentification Questionnaire (PQ) and the Parentification Scale (PS) in research studies, scant attention has been directed toward the psychometric properties of the scores derived from these measures. Moreover, given the importance of parentification as a clinical topic for treatment, it is surprising that more attention has not been paid to the accuracy and psychometric properties of parentification instruments. The current study was the first to compare the psychometric properties of these two commonly used parentification instruments (i.e., PQ and PS). This study also examined another parentification instrument, newly developed: the Parentification Inventory (PI). More specifically, the psychometric properties of the PI were compared comprehensively with those of the PQ and PS in a sample of college students (N = 787). Scores derived from the three measures were found to be comparable, valid, and reliable. Implications for couple and family system practice, and directions for future research are proffered

ASSESSING FAMILY CAREGIVING: A COMPARISON OF THREE RETROSPECTIVE PARENTIFICATION MEASURES

Despite the frequent use of the Parentification Questionnaire (PQ) and the Parentification Scale (PS) in research studies, scant attention has been directed toward the psychometric properties of the scores derived from these measures. Moreover, given the importance of parentification as a clinical topic for treatment, it is surprising that more attention has not been paid to the accuracy and psychometric properties of parentification instruments. The current study was the first to compare the psychometric properties of these two commonly used parentification instruments (i.e., PQ and PS). This study also examined another parentification instrument, newly developed: the Parentification Inventory (PI). More specifically, the psychometric properties of the PI were compared comprehensively with those of the PQ and PS in a sample of college students (N = 787). Scores derived from the three measures were found to be comparable, valid, and reliable. Implications for couple and family system practice, and directions for future research are proffered