Dancing Along the Tightrope of Leisure: Puritans and Dance in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts

A more holistic view of the Puritans in seventeenth-century Massachusetts can be reached by looking at their complex relationship with leisure and its manifestation both in their dance practice and attitudes towards dance. This thesis takes a multi-disciplinary approach in bringing to light this understanding, consisting of research into a variety of fields including music, English history, Colonial American history, social dance studies, and theology. Chapter I lays out the theological and historical heritage of the Non-separatist Puritans who sailed to Massachusetts with John Winthrop in 1630. Chapter II progresses through a detailed exploration of Puritan dance examples and analyses from England and New England. Chapter III provides a thorough explication of the first argument in Increase Mathers 1685 tract, An Arrow against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out of the Quiver of Scriptures. From this research the following conclusions can be drawn: the Puritans did dance, both in England and Massachusetts, and the stereotype of Puritans who condemned dance was the result of the Puritan\u27s complex attitudes towards leisure which they saw as an acceptable pursuit, but only when practiced in an orderly manner

The Effect of the Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach: A Case Study

The speech-language pathologist has many options regarding the course of action they deem the most efficient in remediating a phonological disorder. The purpose of this case study was to research the efficacy of using the Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach (Cycles Approach) as written by Hodson and Paden (Hodson & Paden, 1983; Hodson & Paden, 1991; Hodson, 2006; Hodson, 2007) on a six-year-old child with a moderate-to-severe phonological disorder with low intelligibility. This study included three phases: initial assessment, intervention, and the final assessment. One cycle of intervention over the course of approximately two semesters was administered to target three of the most prominent phonological processes as determined by the Cycles Approach protocol. The targets selected to remediate cluster reduction, syllable deletion, and gliding were /s/ blends, multisyllabic words, and initial /l/ and /l/ blends. Following completion of the targeted intervention cycle, a follow-up assessment was completed. Results demonstrated progress with severity ratings changing from moderate severity to mild severity as indicated on initial assessment results. While the client’s phonological skills improved to a point of single-word accuracy in practice, generalization was not maintained or facilitated for conversational level with the Cycles Approach

Chromatophore Activity during Natural Pattern Expression by the Squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana: Contributions of Miniature Oscillation

Squid can rapidly change the chromatic patterns on their body. The patterns are created by the expansion and retraction of chromatophores. The chromatophore consists of a central pigment-containing cell surrounded by radial muscles that are controlled by motor neurons located in the central nervous system (CNS). In this study we used semi-intact squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana) displaying centrally controlled natural patterns to analyze spatial and temporal activities of chromatophores located on the dorsal mantle skin. We found that chromatophores oscillated with miniature expansions/retractions at various frequencies, even when the chromatic patterns appear macroscopically stable. The frequencies of this miniature oscillation differed between “feature” and “background” areas of chromatic patterns. Higher frequencies occurred in feature areas, whereas lower frequencies were detected in background areas. We also observed synchronization of the oscillation during chromatic pattern expression. The expansion size of chromatophores oscillating at high frequency correlated with the number of synchronized chromatophores but not the oscillation frequency. Miniature oscillations were not observed in denervated chromatophores. These results suggest that miniature oscillations of chromatophores are driven by motor neuronal activities in the CNS and that frequency and synchrony of this oscillation determine the chromatic pattern and the expansion size, respectively

Free energy landscapes, dynamics and the edge of chaos in mean-field models of spin glasses

Metastable states in Ising spin-glass models are studied by finding iterative solutions of mean-field equations for the local magnetizations. Two different equations are studied: the TAP equations which are exact for the SK model, and the simpler `naive-mean-field' (NMF) equations. The free-energy landscapes that emerge are very different. For the TAP equations, the numerical studies confirm the analytical results of Aspelmeier et al., which predict that TAP states consist of close pairs of minima and index-one (one unstable direction) saddle points, while for the NMF equations saddle points with large indices are found. For TAP the barrier height between a minimum and its nearby saddle point scales as (f-f_0)^{-1/3} where f is the free energy per spin of the solution and f_0 is the equilibrium free energy per spin. This means that for `pure states', for which f-f_0 is of order 1/N, the barriers scale as N^{1/3}, but between states for which f-f_0 is of order one the barriers are finite and also small so such metastable states will be of limited physical significance. For the NMF equations there are saddles of index K and we can demonstrate that their complexity Sigma_K scales as a function of K/N. We have also employed an iterative scheme with a free parameter that can be adjusted to bring the system of equations close to the `edge of chaos'. Both for the TAP and NME equations it is possible with this approach to find metastable states whose free energy per spin is close to f_0. As N increases, it becomes harder and harder to find solutions near the edge of chaos, but nevertheless the results which can be obtained are competitive with those achieved by more time-consuming computing methods and suggest that this method may be of general utility.Comment: 13 page

Blood rheology, cardiovascular risk factors, and cardiovascular disease: The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study

The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) showed that pravastatin reduced the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events in 6,595 middle-aged hypercholesterolaemic men aged 45-64 years without prior myocardial infarction followed for an average of 4.9 years. We hypothesised prospectively (a) that baseline levels of haemorheological variables were related to baseline and incident CHD and to mortality; and (b) that reduction in lipoproteins by pravastatin would lower plasma and blood viscosity, a potential contributory mechanism to CHD events. We therefore studied plasma and blood viscosity, fibrinogen, haematocrit, and blood cell counts at baseline and 1 year. At baseline, plasma and blood viscosity were related to risk factors, CHD measures, and claudication. On univariate analysis, baseline levels of all rheological variables (except platelet count) were related to incident CHD; CHD mortality; and total mortality. On multivariate analysis including baseline CHD and risk factors, plasma and blood viscosity, haematocrit and white cell count each remained significantly associated with incident CHD; while fibrinogen remained an independent predictor of mortality (all p<0.03). After one year, lipoprotein reduction by pravastatin was associated with significant reductions (about one quarter of a standard deviation) in plasma viscosity (mean difference 0.02 mPa.s, p<0.001) and in blood viscosity (mean difference 0.06 mPa.s, p<0.001), but was not associated with significant changes in other rheological variables. We therefore suggest that pravastatin therapy, which reduces elevated lipoproteins in hypercholesterolaemic men, may lower risks of CHD and mortality partly by lowering plasma and blood viscosity. Further studies are required to test this hypothesis

Denitrification rates in the eastern tropical South Pacific

Measurements of microbial metabolism suggest that the denitrification rate in the oxygen deficient waters of the eastern tropical South Pacific was approximately 2.5 × 1013g N yr-1 during September 1976-May 1977. This rate may be considerably higher than the rate that existed before ~ 1972...