Maintaining Disorder: Some Technical and Aesthetic Issues Involved in the Performance of Ligeti’s E´ tudes for Piano

This article examines some of the particular questions and associated strategies concerning matters of rhythm, perceived metre, notation, accentuation, line, physical approach to the keyboard, pedalling, and more in the performance of Ligeti’s Études for piano. I relate these issues to those encountered in earlier repertoire, including works of Schumann, Liszt, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartók and Blacher, and argue that particular approaches and attitudes to both technical and musical matters in the context of these Études can fundamentally affect the concept of the music. A particular focus is upon issues of continuity and discontinuity, and the ‘situation’ of these works within particular pianistic and other traditions by virtue of the approach taken to performance

Cancer risks in childhood and adolescence among the offspring of immigrants to Sweden

We used the nation-wide Swedish Family-Cancer Database to analyse the risk of nervous system tumours, leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in age groups 0–4 and 0–19 years among Swedish-born offspring of immigrants. The study included 850 000 individuals with an immigrant background, including European, Asian and American parents. We calculated standardised incidence ratios for the above three malignancies using Swedish offspring as a reference. Subjects were grouped by region or by selected countries of parental origin. No group differed significantly from Swedes in the occurrence of nervous system neoplasm or leukaemia. Offspring of Yugoslav fathers (SIR 2.27) and Turkish parents were at increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The highest risk was noted for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among young offspring (0–4 years) of two Turkish parents (6.87). The currently available limited data on rates for childhood non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in these countries do not explain the risk in the offspring of immigrants. Yugoslavs and Turks are recent immigrant groups to Sweden, and their offspring have been subject to much population mixing, perhaps leading to recurring infections and immunological stimulation, which may contribute to their excess of lymphomas

Observations on the spatio-temporal patterns of radon along the western fault of the Dead Sea Transform, NW Dead Sea

An extensive radon anomaly is developed along the western boundary fault of the Dead Sea Transform in the NW sector of the Dead Sea, extending 15–20 km north-south. The highest radon values occur in proximity to the fault scarp. Radon is measured, in gravel (depth 1.5–3 m) at sites located at a) on-fault positions, 1–30 meters east of the fault scarp, and b) off-fault positions located 600–800 the east. Prominent signals occur in the annual and daily periodicity bands, as well as non-periodic multi-day variations (2–20 days). Modulations occur among the annual variation and the multi-day and the daily signals, and between the multi-day and the daily signal. Dissimilar variation patterns occur at on-fault versus off-fault sites in the time domain, and in the relative amplitude of the daily periodicities. Variation patterns and their modulations are similar to those encountered in experimental simulations. It is concluded that: 1) above surface atmospheric influences can be excluded; 2) a remote above surface influence probably drives the periodic components in the annual and diurnal bands; 3) diurnal as well as the multi-day signals are modified and inter-modulated by near field geological (static) and geophysical (dynamic) influences. Systematically different influences are operating at on-fault versus off-fault positions, So far the natures of these near field influences are unidentified

The homology of cyclic and irregular dihedral coverings branched over homology spheres

H. M. Hilden [Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 80 (1974), 1243–1244; MR0350719 (50 #3211)], U. Hirsch [Math. Z. 140 (1974), 203–230] and Montesinos [Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 80 (1974), 845–846] showed that every closed and orientable 3-manifold is a 3-fold dihedral covering space branched along a knot in S3. The purpose of the paper under review is to answer the question of whether this is true for irregular dihedral covering spaces branched over S3 with more than 3 sheets. The authors first show that for each odd prime p, the homology group Hi(M;Z) of every p-fold irregular dihedral covering space M over a homology n-sphere can be given the structure of a finitely generated module over the ring Z[ξ+ξ−1] of integers of the real cyclotomic field Q[ξ+ξ−1], where ξ=exp(2πi/p). For each odd prime p, using the fact that Z[ξ+ξ−1] is a Dedekind domain, they describe the class Dp of finitely generated abelian groups supporting the structure of a finitely generated module over Z[ξ+ξ−1], and prove that if M is a p-fold irregular dihedral covering space branched over a homology n-sphere, then Hi(M;Z)∈Dp, i≠0,n. This generalizes the results of Chumillas ["Study of dihedral coverings in S3 branched over knots'', Ph.D. Thesis, Madrid, 1984; per bibl.] and of A. Costa and J. M. Ruiz [Math. Ann. 275 (1986), no. 1, 163–168]. As a consequence of these results, they obtain 3-manifolds which are not p-fold irregular dihedral covering spaces branched over S3 for any prime p>3. The authors indicate that the method used in this paper is applicable to the case of cyclic covering spaces branched over a homology n-sphere. The realization problem (i.e., given a group G∈Dp, does there exist an irregular p-fold dihedral covering space p:M→S3 such that H1(M;Z) is isomorphic to G?) is also studied. Finally, the authors conclude by providing three tables which give the homology group of the p-fold irregular dihedral covering spaces of the knots of less than eleven crossings with more than 2 bridges for p=5,7,11