Analysing intonation of the Pied Butcherbird

Native to Australia, the Pied Butcherbird has been extensively studied and transcribed by previous composers, notably including Olivier Messiaen. This may be due to richness and diversity in each bird’s repertoire, along with parallels drawn from Western Tonality. Hollis Taylor has conducted extensive study in this field, notably with an analysis of a transcription made by Messiaen, that was incorporated in his piece Éclairs sur l\u27au- delà (1988-91). Coupled with the original field recording, Taylor’s analysis and Messiaen’s score, this study will reanalyse the original recording from which Messiaen made his transcription. Zoomusicology is a practice that represents the nexus of research between musicology, biology, and science. At the present time research yields varying and inconsistent accounts of the prevalence or absence of quantifiable intonation among calls made by animals in the wild. Audio frequency analysis methods can also be inconsistent, potentially contributing to inconclusive results. Could a comparative assessment of computational analyses help refine the process of identifying intonation from recorded audio, and establish a greater consensus in the field of Zoomusicology? The aims of this research center on current practices of field recording analysis, with the aim of accuracy in frequency data collection. A number of computational spectral analysis methods are compared with the aim of accurately transcribing and notating the field recording. By comparing frequencies described in just intonation and cents, along with alternative methods of notation, like the 3D spectrogram; this dissertation builds on Taylor’s research in gaining an accurate understanding of the intonation and a possible notation of the Pied Butcherbird, that can be drawn upon in future music compositions, and analyses of other creatures from the wild

Metz – Borny, rue des Potiers d’Étain, usine PSA

Un diagnostic a été prescrit, sur une surface totale de 49 300 m2, à l’emplacement de l’usine PSA et réalisée dans la continuité de l’opération de Simon Sedlbauer. Il a permis d’identifier deux fossés, deux structures en creux ainsi qu’une dépression naturelle. Le premier fossé, retrouvé dans le sondage 4, est orienté nord-est – sud-ouest. Il n’a pas pu être daté. Le second a été rencontré dans les sondages 21, 23 et 24. Il est axé nord-sud et suit l’alignement d’un chemin encore visible de n..

Hydrogen Sulfide Measurement by Headspace-gas Chromatography-mass Spectrometry (HS-GC-MS): Application to Gaseous Samples and Gas Dissolved in Muscle

The aim of our study was to present a new headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) method applicable to the routine determination of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) concentrations in biological and gaseous samples. The primary analytical drawback of the GC/MS methods for H2S measurement discussed in the literature was the absence of a specific H2S internal standard required to perform quantification. Although a deuterated hydrogen sulfide (D2S) standard is currently available, this standard is not often used because this standard is expensive and is only available in the gas phase. As an alternative approach, D2S can be generated in situ by reacting deuterated chloride with sodium sulfide; however, this technique can lead to low recovery yield and potential isotopic fractionation. Therefore, N2O was chosen for use as an internal standard. This method allows precise measurements of H2S concentrations in biological and gaseous samples. Therefore, a full validation using accuracy profile based on the β-expectation tolerance interval is presented. Finally, this method was applied to quantify H2S in an actual case of H2S fatal intoxicatio

Services and Interventions for People who are Homeless with Companion Animals (Pets)

Background: Many people who are homeless own a companion animal (a ‘pet’). Pet ownership has positive impacts on health and wellbeing. However, for people who are homeless, pet ownership also creates multiple challenges and may be a barrier to exiting homelessness. This systematic review will identify the types, and outcomes, of services and interventions to support people who are homeless with pets.  Methods/Design: This review will be conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Searches will be undertaken on five databases. Combinations of search terms and subject headings or index terms will be used. Citation chaining and citation tracking will also be undertaken. Literature will be screened for relevance in a two-step process. Each study will be quality assessed using an evidence-based tool relevant to its methods. Relevant data will be extracted and synthesised using a meta-analytic, or narrative, approach. Discussion: This review will address an identified gap in the knowledge about the types, and outcomes, of services/interventions for people who are homeless with pets. The results may increase recognition about the importance of protecting and promoting the relationship between people who are homeless and their pets, and inform future work

Whiplash patients' responses on the impact of events scale-R - congruent with pain or PTSD symptoms?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are common among people with whiplash following a motor vehicle crash. The Impact of Events Scale - Revised (IES-R) screens for PTSD symptoms with psychologist referral recommended for above-threshold scores. Recent data indicate that PTSD symptoms post-whiplash may relate more to pain and disability than the crash itself. This study explored the interpretation of IES-R items by people with whiplash to establish whether responses relate to the crash or to whiplash pain and disability.Adults with whiplash scoring >24 on the IES-R were eligible. The Three-Step Test-Interview technique was used and responses analysed using content analysis. A coding framework was developed, comprising five categories: "congruent" - responses related to the crash; "incongruent" - responses did not relate to the crash; "ambiguous" - responses were both congruent and incongruent; "confusion" - participants misunderstood the item content; "not applicable" - irrelevancy of items to participants' circumstances.The 15 participants (mean IES-R= 37/88) were inclined to respond congruently to specific PTSD items and incongruently to non-specific PTSD items. Participants were more inclined to rate non-specific PTSD items in terms of pain and disability, e.g., >60% responded incongruently to item 2: "I had trouble staying asleep"; item 4: 'I felt irritable and angry"; item 15: "I had trouble falling asleep"; and item 18: "I had trouble concentrating".Incongruent responses on non-specific PTSD items may inadvertently inflate levels of PTSD symptoms measured with the IES-R for some whiplash patients, raising implications for the assessment and treatment of the psychological sequelae of whiplash

Hydrogen sulfide measurement by headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS): application to gaseous samples and gas dissolved in muscle.

The aim of our study was to present a new headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) method applicable to the routine determination of hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) concentrations in biological and gaseous samples. The primary analytical drawback of the GC/MS methods for H(2)S measurement discussed in the literature was the absence of a specific H(2)S internal standard required to perform quantification. Although a deuterated hydrogen sulfide (D(2)S) standard is currently available, this standard is not often used because this standard is expensive and is only available in the gas phase. As an alternative approach, D(2)S can be generated in situ by reacting deuterated chloride with sodium sulfide; however, this technique can lead to low recovery yield and potential isotopic fractionation. Therefore, N(2)O was chosen for use as an internal standard. This method allows precise measurements of H(2)S concentrations in biological and gaseous samples. Therefore, a full validation using accuracy profile based on the β-expectation tolerance interval is presented. Finally, this method was applied to quantify H(2)S in an actual case of H(2)S fatal intoxication

Three cheers for nitrogen: aza-DKPs, the aza analogues of 2,5-diketopiperazines

Nitrogen-containing heterocycles represent a major source of pharmacological probes and drug candidates. To extend their molecular diversity and their potential biological activities, it is of importance to design and synthesize new N-heterocyclic scaffolds. Therefore, aza-diketopiperazines (aza-DKPs), the aza analogues of well-known 2,5-diketopiperazines (DKPs), emerged as a promising new scaffold. Although the first synthesis of an aza-DKP dates from 1951, significant developments have been made during the last decade. This feature article summarizes the different synthetic strategies to access and functionalise aza-DKPs. Their biological properties and potential applications in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery are discussed as well

Typing High-Speed Cryptography against Spectre v1

The current gold standard of cryptographic software is to write efficient libraries with systematic protections against timing attacks. In order to meet this goal, cryptographic engineers increasingly use high-assurance cryptography tools. These tools guide programmers and provide rigorous guarantees that can be verified independently by library users. However, high-assurance tools reason about overly simple execution models that elide micro-architectural leakage. Thus, implementations validated by high-assurance cryptography tools remain potentially vulnerable to micro-architectural attacks such as Spectre or Meltdown. Moreover, proposed countermeasures are not used in practice due to performance overhead. We propose, analyze, implement and evaluate an approach for writing efficient cryptographic implementations that are protected against Spectre v1 attacks. Our approach ensures speculative constant-time, an information flow property which guarantees that programs are protected against Spectre v1. Speculative constant-time is enforced by means of a (value-dependent) information flow type system. The type system tracks security levels depending on whether execution is misspeculating. We implement our approach in the Jasmin framework for high assurance cryptography, and use it for protecting all implementations of an experimental cryptographic library that includes highly optimized implementations of symmetric primitives, of elliptic-curve cryptography, and of Kyber, a lattice-based KEM recently selected by NIST for standardization. The performance impact of our protections is very low; for example, less than 1% for Kyber and essentially zero for X25519