Can You Hear My Voice? Students\u27 Reflections Regarding Access to Music Participation During Secondary School

This research was purposed to discover how students perceived the impact of participation or lack of participation in school music classes on their global school experiences during secondary school. The research stemmed from concern that recent focus on state and federal mandates may have resulted in a return to educational policies that discount consideration of student experience. All choir students (N = 160) at a large university in the southeastern United States comprised the participant population for the initial screening questionnaire, with 135 students returning completed surveys. Questionnaire results informed the purposeful sampling of 16 students in six focus groups. The focus-group responses guided the selection of the six students from the focus groups to participate in one 30-45 minute individual interview. The researcher-designed screening questionnaire was a structured survey with open-ended and closed questions (Creswell, 2012; Markus & Nurius, 1986). The interview instruments had guiding questions based on the phenomenological suggestions of Moustakas (1994). The resulting information is in narrative form. Analysis, beginning with the data generated by the questionnaire, was ongoing throughout the study. Hallam’s (2002) motivational model positing the malleable aspects of the personality such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, possible selves, and the ideal self anchored the final analysis. Students reflected on the overarching question, “Did involvement or lack of involvement in school music affect students’ perceptions of the global school experience and extra-musical success?” The findings support the premise that participation in school music can have a positive affect on students’ comprehensive school experience extending to a sense of community, increased self-confidence and leadership, enhanced learning in non-music classes, and a time of relief from academic stress. At-risk students described the ameliorating effects of music participation on their challenging life situations. An ancillary finding was that many students were advised to discontinue music classes to take advanced academic classes, rather than for remediation. These results of this study may provide a useful tool for advocacy. Future research could investigate whether participation in music classes promotes learning and memory consolidation of academic knowledge by providing divergent learning tasks that stimulate new modes of thinking

The brokerage role of small states and territories in global corporate networks

Global economic activity is networked through cross‐national linkages between firm headquarters, branches, and subsidiaries. Brokerage emerges as a key territorial function of this network, with some places acting as gateways or intermediaries for flows of global knowledge, information, or trade. This function is particularly salient for small states and territories leveraging the benefits of borrowed size by offering global professional services, warehousing, logistics, shipping, and finance to wealthy nations or high net individuals. Nonetheless, to date our understanding of how small states and territories facilitate wealth accumulation is limited to broad concepts of their role as “gateways” or “brokers.” Drawing on a typology of brokerage and a network analysis applied to the ties between approximately 700,000 firm headquarter and subsidiary locations of 13 of the world's largest stock exchanges, we explore the brokerage role of small states and territories through case studies of Luxembourg, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Panama. Brokerage is found to play an important role in the economy of all four. We argue that each of these small states and territories is uniquely positioned as a broker in global corporate networks, but that this role differs according to geo‐economic and political positionality

The role of tax havens and offshore financial centres in shaping corporate geographies: an industry sector perspective

This paper investigates the role of tax havens and offshore financial centres (THOFC) in the global economy. Network analysis of 24 industry sectors suggests that THOFC feature prominently in knowledge-intensive activities such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and semiconductors, and are least significant in industrial activities such as automobiles and consumer durables, and place-bound activities such as real estate and retailing. Contrasting with the notion that most THOFC are ‘rogue’ offshore territories, the most significant are either continental nation-states or British territorial dependencies. It is concluded that global firm networks often mimic the geographies of taxation more than actual production or consumption activities

Pseudomorphic Growth of a Single Element Quasiperiodic Ultrathin Film on a Quasicrystal Substrate

An ultrathin film with a periodic interlayer spacing was grown by the deposition of Cu atoms on thefivefold surface of the icosahedral Al70 Pd21 Mn9 quasicrystal. For coverages from 5 to 25 monolayers, a distinctive quasiperiodic low-energy electron diffraction pattern is observed. Scanning tunneling microscopy images show that the in-plane structure comprises rows having separations of S = 4.5 �0.2 �A and L = 7.3 0.3 A, whose ratio equals � =1.618... within experimental error. The sequences of such row separations form segments of terms of the Fibonacci sequence, indicative of the formation of a pseudomorphic Cu film

III. Introgressive mtDNA Transfer in Hybrid Lake Suckers (Teleostei, Catostomidae) in Western United States

Hybridization and introgression permitted gene transfer from Catostomus to Lake Suckers in modern and MioPliocene lakes of Western United States. Lake Sucker genera, Chasmistes, Deltistes, and Xyrauchen, were sympatric with species of Catostomus (riverine suckers) in four large modern lakes and many fossil lakes in the Great Basin, Klamath, and Columbia-Snake drainages, and also in the Colorado River. Unique morphological traits in Lake Suckers originally included distinctive lips, jaw bones, neurocranial bones, and gill-rakers, but many of the original traits were lost or partly lost, and the remaining phenotypes are mixtures of intermediate morphological traits grading toward local species of Catostomus.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145184/1/MP 204no3.pdfDescription of MP 204no3.pdf : Main Articl

Police stress and teacher stress at work and at home

This study compared police officers and teachers in three communities--which varied in size, geographical location, and economic base--for differences in perceived occupational stress and for differences in the patterns of perceived job stress, perceived nonjob stress, and both perceived job and life stressors. For police officers, higher levels of job stress were associated with higher levels on measures of perceived job stressors. This relationship varied from city to city, with the relationship holding for the city in which both police operations and school operations were relatively normal, with no difference between police and teachers in the city in which the school administration was in conflict with its employees, and with a reversal in the city in which the police administration was noted for its excellent management skills.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29609/1/0000698.pd

Molecular architecture of Gαo and the structural basis for RGS16-mediated deactivation

Heterotrimeric G proteins relay extracellular cues from heptahelical transmembrane receptors to downstream effector molecules. Composed of an α subunit with intrinsic GTPase activity and a βγ heterodimer, the trimeric complex dissociates upon receptor-mediated nucleotide exchange on the α subunit, enabling each component to engage downstream effector targets for either activation or inhibition as dictated in a particular pathway. To mitigate excessive effector engagement and concomitant signal transmission, the Gα subunit's intrinsic activation timer (the rate of GTP hydrolysis) is regulated spatially and temporally by a class of GTPase accelerating proteins (GAPs) known as the regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) family. The array of G protein-coupled receptors, Gα subunits, RGS proteins and downstream effectors in mammalian systems is vast. Understanding the molecular determinants of specificity is critical for a comprehensive mapping of the G protein system. Here, we present the 2.9 Å crystal structure of the enigmatic, neuronal G protein Gαo in the GTP hydrolytic transition state, complexed with RGS16. Comparison with the 1.89 Å structure of apo-RGS16, also presented here, reveals plasticity upon Gαo binding, the determinants for GAP activity, and the structurally unique features of Gαo that likely distinguish it physiologically from other members of the larger Gαi family, affording insight to receptor, GAP and effector specificity

Radiative Muon Capture on Hydrogen and the Induced Pseudoscalar Coupling

The first measurement of the elementary process $\mu^- p \rightarrow \nu_{\mu} n \gamma$ is reported. A photon pair spectrometer was used to measure the partial branching ratio ($2.10 \pm 0.22) \times 10^{-8}$ for photons of k > 60 MeV. The value of the weak pseudoscalar coupling constant determined from the partial branching ratio is $g_p(q^{2}=-0.88m_{\mu}^2) = (9.8 \pm 0.7 \pm 0.3) \cdot g_a(0)$, where the first error is the quadrature sum of statistical and systematic uncertainties and the second error is due to the uncertainty in $\lambda_{op}$, the decay rate of the ortho to para $p \mu p$ molecule. This value of g_p is $\sim$1.5 times the prediction of PCAC and pion-pole dominance.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX type, 3 figures (encapsulated postscript), submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Scanning disk rings and winds in CO at 0.01-10 au: a high-resolution MM-band spectroscopy survey with IRTF-iSHELL

We present an overview and first results from a $M$-band spectroscopic survey of planet-forming disks performed with iSHELL on IRTF, using two slits that provide resolving power R $\approx$ 60,000-92,000 (5-3.3 km/s). iSHELL provides a nearly complete coverage at 4.52-5.24 $\mu$m in one shot, covering $>50$ lines from the R and P branches of $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO for each of multiple vibrational levels, and providing unprecedented information on the excitation of multiple emission and absorption components. Some of the most notable new findings of this survey are: 1) the detection of two CO Keplerian rings at $<2$ au (in HD 259431), 2) the detection of H${_2}$O ro-vibrational lines at 5 $\mu$m (in AS 205 N), and 3) the common kinematic variability of CO lines over timescales of 1-14 years. By homogeneously analyzing this survey together with a previous VLT-CRIRES survey of cooler stars, we discuss a unified view of CO spectra where emission and absorption components scan the disk surface across radii from a dust-free region within dust sublimation out to $\approx10$ au. We classify two fundamental types of CO line shapes interpreted as emission from Keplerian rings (double-peak lines) and a disk surface plus a low-velocity part of a wind (triangular lines), where CO excitation reflects different emitting regions (and their gas-to-dust ratio) rather than just the irradiation spectrum. A disk+wind interpretation for the triangular lines naturally explains several properties observed in CO spectra, including the line blue-shifts, line shapes that turn into narrow absorption at high inclinations, and the frequency of disk winds as a function of stellar type.Comment: Accepted for publication on The Astronomical Journa