The Singing Voice Specialist: An Essential Bridge Between Two Worlds

For more than 35 years, voice teachers have been seeking an educational platform to adequately prepare a Singing Voice Specialist. Several degree ideas have been proposed, none of which have been fully implemented, leaving the field of Singing Voice Specialty without a certifying body or way to achieve licensure or certification. This document seeks to uncover the current progress in the field of Singing Voice Specialty, the progression of educational programs geared toward Singing Voice Specialization, possible accrediting associations, and future education needed to propel this profession forward. In seeking these answers, experts within various aspects of voice care are interviewed to discuss the aforementioned questions. An anonymous survey was administered to singers which included questions regarding performance genre, vocal health, and knowledge of Singing Voice Specialization

CLIPS application user interface for the PC

The majority of applications that utilize expert system development programs for their knowledge representation and inferencing capability require some form of interface with the end user. This interface is more than likely an interaction through the computer screen. When building an application the user interface can prove to be the most difficult and time consuming aspect to program. Commercial products currently exist which address this issue. To keep pace C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) will need to find a solution for their lack of an easy to use Application User Interface (AUI). This paper represents a survey of the DoD CLIPS' user community and provides the backbone of a possible solution

Art AIDS America: Expressions from an Epidemic

This series of lessons for K-12 Art classrooms emerged from the spring 2016 ZMA exhibition, Art AIDS America. This groundbreaking exhibition underscored the deep and unforgettable presence of HIV in American art. It introduced and explored a wide spectrum of artistic responses to AIDS, from the politically outspoken to the quietly mournful, surveying works from the early 1980s to the present. Art AIDS America was organized by Tacoma Art Museum in partnership with The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and co-curated by Dr. Jonathan D. Katz, Director, Visual Studies Doctoral Program at the University at Buffalo (The State University of New York), and Rock Hushka, Chief Curator at Tacoma Art Museum. The ZMA was the only southern representative on the tour of this critical exploration in art.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/zuckermanmuseum_p12/1005/thumbnail.jp

Modelled hydraulic redistribution by sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) matches observed data only after including night-time transpiration

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Plant, Cell & Environment 37 (2014): 899-910, doi:10.1111/pce.12206.The movement of water from moist to dry soil layers through the root systems of plants, referred to as hydraulic redistribution (HR), occurs throughout the world and is thought to influence carbon and water budgets and ecosystem functioning. The realized hydrologic, biogeochemical, and ecological consequences of HR depend on the amount of redistributed water, while the ability to assess these impacts requires models that correctly capture HR magnitude and timing. Using several soil types and two eco-types of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in split-pot experiments, we examined how well the widely used HR modeling formulation developed by Ryel et al. (2002) matched experimental determination of HR across a range of water potential driving gradients. H. annuus carries out extensive nighttime transpiration, and though over the last decade it has become more widely recognized that nighttime transpiration occurs in multiple species and many ecosystems, the original Ryel et al. (2002) formulation does not include the effect of nighttime transpiration on HR. We developed and added a representation of nighttime transpiration into the formulation, and only then was the model able to capture the dynamics and magnitude of HR we observed as soils dried and nighttime stomatal behavior changed, both influencing HR.This work was supported by a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship to RBN, administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to NMH, and by DOE Terrestrial Ecosystem Science grant ER65389 to ZGC and RBN.2014-10-2

Treatment Use Among Children with Tourette Syndrome Living in The United States, 2014

Treatment of Tourette syndrome (TS) can be complicated by changes over time in tic expression, severity, and co-occurring disorders. Using the 2014 National Survey of the Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD and Tourette Syndrome, this study provides descriptive estimates of the use of behavioral interventions and medication among children living with TS. Parent-reported data on 115 children aged 5–17 years ever diagnosed with TS were analyzed to provide descriptive, unweighted results. Overall, 77.4% of children had current or past use of any TS treatment; 59.1% ever used behavioral interventions and 56.1% had ever taken TS medication. Children with moderate” or “severe” versus “mild” TS, ≥1 co-occurring disorders, and tics that interfered with functioning were significantly more likely to have used one or more TS treatments. Side effects were reported for 84.4% of children who took TS medication. Most parents of children with current TS (87.2%) were satisfied with the management of their child\u27s TS. However, parents of children with “moderate” or “severe” current TS were significantly more dissatisfied compared to parents of children with “mild” TS. Findings from this study could be used to inform efforts to support children living with TS and their families

Consequences of Intraspecific Variation in Seed Dispersal for Plant Demography, Communities, Evolution and Global Change

As the single opportunity for plants to move, seed dispersal has an important impact on plant fitness, species distributions and patterns of biodiversity. However, models that predict dynamics such as risk of extinction, range shifts and biodiversity loss tend to rely on the mean value of parameters and rarely incorporate realistic dispersal mechanisms. By focusing on the mean population value, variation among individuals or variability caused by complex spatial and temporal dynamics is ignored. This calls for increased efforts to understand individual variation in dispersal and integrate it more explicitly into population and community models involving dispersal. However, the sources, magnitude and outcomes of intraspecific variation in dispersal are poorly characterized, limiting our understanding of the role of dispersal in mediating the dynamics of communities and their response to global change. In this manuscript, we synthesize recent research that examines the sources of individual variation in dispersal and emphasize its implications for plant fitness, populations and communities. We argue that this intraspecific variation in seed dispersal does not simply add noise to systems, but, in fact, alters dispersal processes and patterns with consequences for demography, communities, evolution and response to anthropogenic changes. We conclude with recommendations for moving this field of research forward

Consequences of Intraspecific Variation in Seed Dispersal for Plant Demography, Communities, Evolution and Global Change

As the single opportunity for plants to move, seed dispersal has an important impact on plant fitness, species distributions and patterns of biodiversity. However, models that predict dynamics such as risk of extinction, range shifts and biodiversity loss tend to rely on the mean value of parameters and rarely incorporate realistic dispersal mechanisms. By focusing on the mean population value, variation among individuals or variability caused by complex spatial and temporal dynamics is ignored. This calls for increased efforts to understand individual variation in dispersal and integrate it more explicitly into population and community models involving dispersal. However, the sources, magnitude and outcomes of intraspecific variation in dispersal are poorly characterized, limiting our understanding of the role of dispersal in mediating the dynamics of communities and their response to global change. In this manuscript, we synthesize recent research that examines the sources of individual variation in dispersal and emphasize its implications for plant fitness, populations and communities. We argue that this intraspecific variation in seed dispersal does not simply add noise to systems, but, in fact, alters dispersal processes and patterns with consequences for demography, communities, evolution and response to anthropogenic changes. We conclude with recommendations for moving this field of research forward

Integration of IRF6 and Jagged2 signalling is essential for controlling palatal adhesion and fusion competence

In mammals, adhesion and fusion of the palatal shelves are essential mechanisms during the development of the secondary palate; failure of these processes leads to the congenital anomaly, cleft palate. The mechanisms that prevent pathological adhesion between the oral and palatal epithelia while permitting adhesion and subsequent fusion of the palatal shelves via their medial edge epithelia remain obscure. In humans, mutations in the transcription factor interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6) underlie Van der Woude syndrome and popliteal pterygium syndrome. Recently, we have demonstrated that mice homozygous for a mutation in Irf6 exhibit abnormalities of epithelial differentiation that results in cleft palate as a consequence of adhesion between the palatal shelves and the tongue. In the current paper, we demonstrate that Irf6 is essential for oral epithelial differentiation and that IRF6 and the Notch ligand Jagged2 function in convergent molecular pathways during this process. We further demonstrate that IRF6 plays a key role in the formation and maintenance of the oral periderm, spatio-temporal regulation of which is essential for ensuring appropriate palatal adhesion

Acute Severe Pain Is a Common Consequence of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault (SA) is common, but the epidemiology of acute pain after SA has not previously been reported. We evaluated the severity and distribution of pain symptoms in the early aftermath of SA among women receiving sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) care, and the treatment of pain by SANE nurses. Severe pain (≥7 on a 0–10 numeric rating scale) was reported by 53/83 women sexual assault survivors (64% [95% CI, 53%–74%]) at the time of SANE evaluation and 43/83 women (52% [95% CI, 41%–63%]) one week later. Pain in four or more body regions was reported by 44/83 women (53% [95% CI, 42%–64%]) at the time of initial evaluation and 49/83 women (59% [95% CI, 48%–70%]) at one week follow-up. Among survivors with severe pain at the time of initial post-assault evaluation, only 7/53 (13% [95% CI, 6%–26%]) received any pain medication at the time of initial SANE treatment. These findings suggest that pain is common in SA survivors in the early post-assault period, but rarely treated