Thomas Owens. Bebop: The Music and the Players. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. xvi, 323 pp.

Rawlins' article explains the large and growing body of jazz literature. He discusses the areas of jazz biography, discography, history, and sociology and the generations of famous jazz writers that have come and gone, some having achieved greater recognition than many jazz musicians themselves. Thomas Owens's Bebop: The Music and the Players attempts to explicate the improvisatory style that many feel lies at the very core of the jazz tradition. His idealistic view of jazz improvisation merely reflects a common opinion that has held sway among jazz audiences and performers alike, despite the recorded evidence. In the REVIEWS 109 end, he has succeeded in compiling a wealth of material on bebop and its major performers, and in so doing he has made a significant contribution to the jazz literature

Pushing the Limits: Risk and Accomplishment in Musical Performance

Using examples from musical performance of several kinds, we argue that risk-taking, showing off, virtuosity, and other forms of musical showmanship are in many cases, though not in all, an integral and appropriate part of the music as performed on that occasion. We reflect on the difference between cases where this is so and cases where it is not, using insights from John Dewey’s aesthetics as articulated in Art as Experience

The Public Service Employment Program

From 1971 to 1982, the federal government attempted to reduce unemployment by subsidizing positions in state and local governments. These efforts were geared toward helping the unemployed gain human capital that could lead to unsubsidized work, while helping governments provide needed services for their citizens. A variety of approaches were tried in practically every area of program design. The authors reveal what worked.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1125/thumbnail.jp

Public Service Employment: The Experience of a Decade

From 1971 to 1982, the federal government attempted to reduce unemployment by subsidizing positions in state and local governments. These efforts were geared toward helping the unemployed gain human capital that could lead to unsubsidized work, while helping governments provide needed services for their citizens. A variety of approaches were tried in practically every area of program design. The authors reveal what worked.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1125/thumbnail.jp

Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis via Co-MOF-74-derived Catalysts and Catalytic Membranes

Natural gas and biomass offer alternative carbon feedstocks for the production of liquid fuels. The low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch (FTS) synthesis process is a well-known method of converting these resources into liquid fuels, but currently the process suffers from high operating costs. Developing more active and selective reactors through novel catalyst design and reactor configurations will contribute to lowering operating costs. Pyrolysis of metal-organic frameworks is a recent technique used to prepare highly loaded and dispersed catalysts, for more active and selective performance. Catalysts derived from Co-MOF-74 were prepared and tested in a fixed-bed reactor, whilst chemical vapour deposition of acetylene was applied to improve performance. Loading the catalyst exclusively into the reactor resulted in very significant heat effects due to the highly exothermic nature of FTS, which was extremely detrimental to performance. Diluting the catalyst with inert particles showed significant improvement, whilst chemical vapour deposition of acetylene suggested further improvement. Comparing these catalysts to a conventionally prepared cobalt-based gamma-alumina supported catalyst, higher C7+ yields were obtained when the activity and local heat effect were considered. Two novel catalytic membrane reactors were prepared. A phase-inversion and sintering technique was used to prepare two uniquely micro-structured ceramic flat-disc membranes, with micro-channel diameters of around 50 to 200 μm, for the purpose of reducing transport limitations which may negatively impact selectivity and activity. The membranes were impregnated with cobalt and tested alongside a pellet-based and ground gamma-alumina supported cobalt catalysts. The membranes did not exhibit superior performance compared to the ground and pellet-based catalysts, likely due to intense heat effects in the micro-channel and poor dispersion of the Co active phase. The Co-MOF-74-derived catalyst was loaded into the membrane, however extremely high methane selectivity was observed

Open questions in human lung organoid research

Organoids have become a prominent model system in pulmonary research. The ability to establish organoid cultures directly from patient tissue has expanded the repertoire of physiologically relevant preclinical model systems. In addition to their derivation from adult lung stem/progenitor cells, lung organoids can be derived from fetal tissue or induced pluripotent stem cells to fill a critical gap in modelling pulmonary development in vitro. Recent years have seen important progress in the characterisation and refinement of organoid culture systems. Here, we address several open questions in the field, including how closely organoids recapitulate the tissue of origin, how well organoids recapitulate patient cohorts, and how well organoids capture diversity within a patient. We advocate deeper characterisation of models using single cell technologies, generation of more diverse organoid biobanks and further standardisation of culture media

Three-dimensional soil organic matter distribution, accessibility and microbial respiration in macroaggregates using osmium staining and synchrotron X-ray computed tomography

The spatial distribution and accessibility of organic matter (OM) to soil microbes in aggregates – determined by the fine-scale, 3-D distribution of OM, pores and mineral phases – may be an important control on the magnitude of soil heterotrophic respiration (SHR). Attempts to model SHR on fine scales requires data on the transition probabilities between adjacent pore space and soil OM, a measure of microbial accessibility to the latter. We used a combination of osmium staining and synchrotron X-ray computed tomography (CT) to determine the 3-D (voxel) distribution of these three phases (scale 6.6 μm) throughout nine aggregates taken from a single soil core (range of organic carbon (OC) concentrations: 4.2–7.7 %). Prior to the synchrotron analyses we had measured the magnitude of SHR for each aggregate over 24 h under controlled conditions (moisture content and temperature). We test the hypothesis that larger magnitudes of SHR will be observed in aggregates with (i) shorter length scales of OM variation (more aerobic microsites) and (ii) larger transition probabilities between OM and pore voxels. After scaling to their OC concentrations, there was a 6-fold variation in the magnitude of SHR for the nine aggregates. The distribution of pore diameters and tortuosity index values for pore branches was similar for each of the nine aggregates. The Pearson correlation between aggregate surface area (normalized by aggregate volume) and normalized headspace C gas concentration was both positive and reasonably large (r D0.44), suggesting that the former may be a factor that influences SHR. The overall transition probabilities between OM and pore voxels were between 0.07 and 0.17, smaller than those used in previous simulation studies. We computed the length scales over which OM, pore and mineral phases vary within each aggregate using 3-D indicator variograms. The median range of models fitted to variograms of OM varied between 38 and 175 μm and was generally larger than the other two phases within each aggregate, but in general variogram models had ranges <250 μm. There was no evidence to support the hypotheses concerning scales of variation in OM and magnitude of SHR; the linear correlation was 0.01. There was weak evidence to suggest a statistical relationship between voxel-based OM–pore transition probabilities and the magnitudes of aggregate SHR (r D0.12).We discuss how our analyses could be extended and suggest improvements to the approach we used