Long Overdue? An Exploration of the Status and Merit of a General Public Performance Right in Sound Recordings

In the sound recording performance rights debate, positions advocated by broadcasters are the polar opposite of those taken by recording artists and labels. Considering all the factors, it is likely that neither claim is entirely meritorious. Both are too extreme to be supported by available evidence. Radio broadcasters ignore what would amount to at least some international harmonization and added foreign royalties, as well as the potential creation of new works that would not be economically viable without a performance royalty. Furthermore, broadcasters fail to adequately account for the possible inequity of granting performance royalties to those who compose music but not to the artists and record labels who help bring that music to life. Lastly, claims of an inability to afford any new performance royalty seem hollow considering the strength of the newly consolidated American radio industry

Engineered Models of Metastasis with Application to Study Cancer Biomechanics

Three-dimensional complex biomechanical interactions occur from the initial steps of tumor formation to the later phases of cancer metastasis. Conventional monolayer cultures cannot recapitulate the complex microenvironment and chemical and mechanical cues that tumor cells experience during their metastatic journey, nor the complexity of their interactions with other, noncancerous cells. As alternative approaches, various engineered models have been developed to recapitulate specific features of each step of metastasis with tunable microenvironments to test a variety of mechanistic hypotheses. Here the main recent advances in the technologies that provide deeper insight into the process of cancer dissemination are discussed, with an emphasis on three-dimensional and mechanical factors as well as interactions between multiple cell types

How Did Mathematics Masters Work Four Thousand Years Ago? Curricula and Progressions in Mesopotamia

International audienceEducation in Mesopotamia is remarkably well documented. The reason for this abundance of sources is the nature of the writing support that was used in the Ancient Near East, namely, clay, an indestructible material that has survived from antiquity to the present day. School exercises have been found by the tens of thousands during archaeological excavations in Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The work of masters left traces on many documents, for example, mathematical exercises for beginners or sets of problems for advanced students. These traces allow us to partly reconstruct the organization of teaching. In this paper, I focus on didactical structures conveyed by sets of mathematical texts from diverse levels of education. I show the diversity of these structures, distinguishing, for example, the curricula produced by long-term institutional mechanisms, from progressions reflecting specific teaching projects of masters. I try to grasp the mathematical notions conveyed by the different didactical structures. To do this, I rely on homogeneous sets of documents produced by quite well-identified communities of students or masters. A discussion on the relevance of the concept of “resource system” in the context of scribal schools is proposed in conclusion