The Net of Jewels: An exploration and shape-based guitar pedagogy for songwriters

This article offers an informal, summary description of the Net of Jewels (NOJ) method, a guitar pedagogy specifically targeted to songwriters writing songs on guitar. The core of the NOJ approach is a progressive sequence of activities that incorporate shape-directed exploration of the guitar fingerboard as an integral aspect, supporting insights about harmony and theory, advancement of guitar skills and technique, and innovative creative work. The article outlines NOJ\u27s core concepts and teaching principles, describes NOJ\u27s pedagogical sequence of topics and supporting exercises and other activities, and provides background on the method\u27s origin and evolution. This description reflects the author\u27s perspective as the developer of NOJ, based on two decades of experience in teaching and refining the method, including the design of two levels of NOJ-based courses, incorporated into the songwriting curriculum at Berklee College of Music

Patient perceptions and expectations regarding imaging for metastatic disease in early stage breast cancer

Abstract Purpose The probability of detecting radiologically evident metastatic disease in asymptomatic women with newly diagnosed operable breast cancer is low. Despite the recommendations of most practice guidelines imaging is still frequently performed. Relatively little is known about what patients believe is important when it comes to radiologic staging. Methods Patients with early stage breast cancer who had completed their definitive breast surgery were surveyed about their personal experiences, perceptions, and expectations on the issue of perioperative imaging for distant metastatic disease. Results Over a 3 month period, 245 women with primary operable breast cancer completed the questionnaire (87.0% response rate) and 80.8% indicated having had at least one imaging test for distant metastatic disease. These were either of the thorax (72.2%), abdomen (55.9%) or skeleton (65.3%) with a total of 701 imaging tests (average of 3.5 tests per patient imaged) performed. Overall, 57.1% indicated that they would want imaging done if the chance of detecting metastases was ≤10%. Although 80.0% of patients indicated that, “doing whatever their doctor recommended” was important to them, 70.4% also noted that they would be uncomfortable if their physician did not order imaging, even if this was in keeping with practice guidelines. Conclusions Most patients with early stage breast cancer recall having imaging tests for distant metastases. Given the choice, most would prefer having imaging performed, even if this is not in line with current guidelines. If patient expectations are, in part, driving excessive imaging, new strategies addressing this are required

Optimistic Planning for Markov Decision Processes

International audienceThe reinforcement learning community has recently intensified its interest in online planning methods, due to their relative independence on the state space size. However, tight near-optimality guarantees are not yet available for the general case of stochastic Markov decision processes and closed-loop, state-dependent planning policies. We therefore consider an algorithm related to AO* that optimistically explores a tree representation of the space of closed-loop policies, and we analyze the near-optimality of the action it returns after n tree node expansions. While this optimistic planning requires a finite number of actions and possible next states for each transition, its asymptotic performance does not depend directly on these numbers, but only on the subset of nodes that significantly impact near-optimal policies. We characterize this set by introducing a novel measure of problem complexity, called the near-optimality exponent. Specializing the exponent and performance bound for some interesting classes of MDPs illustrates the algorithm works better when there are fewer near-optimal policies and less uniform transition probabilities

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure

Differences in Brain Function and Changes with Intervention in Children with Poor Spelling and Reading Abilities

Previous fMRI studies in English-speaking samples suggested that specific interventions may alter brain function in language-relevant networks in children with reading and spelling difficulties, but this research strongly focused on reading impaired individuals. Only few studies so far investigated characteristics of brain activation associated with poor spelling ability and whether a specific spelling intervention may also be associated with distinct changes in brain activity patterns. We here investigated such effects of a morpheme-based spelling intervention on brain function in 20 children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities using repeated fMRI. Relative to 10 matched controls, children with comparatively poor spelling and reading abilities showed increased activation in frontal medial and right hemispheric regions and decreased activation in left occipito-temporal regions prior to the intervention, during processing of a lexical decision task. After five weeks of intervention, spelling and reading comprehension significantly improved in the training group, along with increased activation in the left temporal, parahippocampal and hippocampal regions. Conversely, the waiting group showed increases in right posterior regions. Our findings could indicate an increased left temporal activation associated with the recollection of the new learnt morpheme-based strategy related to successful training

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Applying Organization Domain Modeling (ODM) on the STARS Army/Unisys Demonstration Project

: This paper focuses on experiences and lessons learned to date in applying STARS technologies on the STARS Army/Unisys Demonstration Project. 1 The paper provides background on demonstration project context and objectives, and on methods and technologies being applied, including Organization Domain Modeling (ODM), a systematic approach to domain analysis, the Conceptual Framework for Reuse Processes (CFRP), and the Reuse Library Framework (RLF). A general strategy for technology transition and coevolution in the context of "early adopter" pilot DA projects is described. Keywords: domain analysis methods and techniques; domain modeling; systematic reuse; re-engineering for reuse; reusable architecture; organizational and management techniques for implementing reuse. 1. Introduction The Early Adopters' Challenge. Despite recent progress in reuse techniques, there is still need for a comprehensive, integrated set of methods for achieving systematic reuse [Ara91]. To apply in diverse orga..