Musical Integrity and the Practice of Human Becoming

It strikes me that there are just two categories of “music” and “music learning.” In the first category, each “sells out,” as it were – one may also say reduces itself or is reduced – to a particular ideology, a trend in the market, a convention, a social theory, an educational idea, an apparent reality, a research result and so on. In the second category, music and music learning, in every moment of their practice and engagement – while, on the surface, they might appear to be following a particular convention or trend – in actuality have a self-critical sense of themselves that is kept vibrant and alive by their participants. That is, in the second category, music and music learning test and scrutinize themselves as they are tested and scrutinized. As a consequence, in this category, neither music nor the context in which it is learnt is ever merely a replication of a particular convention or trend but, in contrast, is the site in which that convention or trend is met – is re-evaluated and re-created as the living ground of human self-discovery. Simply put, whereas a learner in the first category might “like” (or “dislike”) Mozart or African drumming because she likes it (or dislikes it) – because she has blindly bought into a social/educational fad or her own “inclinations” that say it is “OK” (or not “OK”) – a learner in the second category self-critically articulates what it is she “likes” (or “dislikes”) about Mozart or African drumming. The focus of the latter student’s engagement has nothing to do with a pre-determined pre-ference, whether it springs from the familiarity of her “real” life or from the ideas of her “theoretical” education. Rather, the focus of her engagement has to do with her self-conscious questioning of her preference – a questioning that is enhanced by the music’s critical sense of its own preference for familiar or theoretical conventions. Importantly, the student’s questioning is not necessarily verbal – she can express her self-critical re-evaluation in her musical interpretation. But, whether verbal or non-verbal, what the student articulates both reveals and practices her self-critical thought, understanding, and consideration for how she engages music. Furthermore, her articulation amplifies her ability to share with both herself and with others what she finds interesting and meaningful, not only in music, but in the wider sphere of her existence. In short, as the student attends self-critically to the music, she attends self-critically to herself – to her integrity as a human being. In my paper I shall develop the concept of human integrity through Kant’s notions of human dignity and worth, Buber’s ideas of “meeting” and I-You, and the ideas of “truth” and “love” articulated by the character of Cordelia in Shakespeare’s play, King Lear. I shall expand on my own idea of self-critical engagement in music and in music learning, and I shall articulate how such engagement is related to these thinker’s ideas of human integrity – how music, far from being “an educational frivolity,” may be recognized as the practice and amplification of human becoming

Physical Optics Analysis of the ALMA Band 5 Front End Optics

The Atacama Large Millimetre Array will be a ground based millimetre to submillimetre band interferometer. The instrument will be comprised of up to 50 high precision 12m Cassegrain antennas. Each antenna will cover a frequency range from 30 to 950 GHz, which will be split into 10 observing channels/bands. Each frequency channel will have its own specifically designed front end optics to couple radiation from the secondary reflector focal plane to the accompanying receiver. We present a full electromagnetic analysis of the band 5 front end optics system using physical optics, which covers a range from 163 to 211 GHz. This band is being developed by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) at Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden. Two software packages are utilised for this analysis; the industry standard reflector antenna software package GRASP9 developed by TICRA [1] and a new optical software package MODAL [2,3] (Maynooth Optical Design Analysis Laboratory) developed at NUI Maynooth, Ireland. Electromagnetic predictions of beam patterns are presented at the Cassegrain focal plane and at the subreflector vertex. The basis of the analysis is primarily to determine optical performance and efficiency and the effects of beam truncation by the off-axis reflectors of the front end optics. Three levels of beam truncation are modelled varying rim diameter

Physical Optics Analysis of the ALMA Band 5 Front End Optics

The Atacama Large Millimetre Array will be a ground based millimetre to submillimetre band interferometer. The instrument will be comprised of up to 50 high precision 12m Cassegrain antennas. Each antenna will cover a frequency range from 30 to 950 GHz, which will be split into 10 observing channels/bands. Each frequency channel will have its own specifically designed front end optics to couple radiation from the secondary reflector focal plane to the accompanying receiver. We present a full electromagnetic analysis of the band 5 front end optics system using physical optics, which covers a range from 163 to 211 GHz. This band is being developed by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) at Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden. Two software packages are utilised for this analysis; the industry standard reflector antenna software package GRASP9 developed by TICRA [1] and a new optical software package MODAL [2,3] (Maynooth Optical Design Analysis Laboratory) developed at NUI Maynooth, Ireland. Electromagnetic predictions of beam patterns are presented at the Cassegrain focal plane and at the subreflector vertex. The basis of the analysis is primarily to determine optical performance and efficiency and the effects of beam truncation by the off-axis reflectors of the front end optics. Three levels of beam truncation are modelled varying rim diameter

High-speed imaging of ice nucleation in water proves the existence of active sites

Understanding how surfaces direct nucleation is a complex problem that limits our ability to predict and control crystal formation. We here address this challenge using high-speed imaging to identify and quantify the sites at which ice nucleates in water droplets on the two natural cleavage faces of macroscopic feldspar substrates. Our data show that ice nucleation only occurs at a few locations, all of which are associated with micron-size surface pits. Similar behavior is observed on α-quartz substrates that lack cleavage planes. These results demonstrate that substrate heterogeneities are the salient factor in promoting nucleation and therefore prove the existence of active sites. We also provide strong evidence that the activity of these sites derives from a combination of surface chemistry and nanoscale topography. Our results have implications for the nucleation of many materials and suggest new strategies for promoting or inhibiting nucleation across a wide range of applications

The ice-nucleating ability of quartz immersed in water and its atmospheric importance compared to K-feldspar

Mineral dust particles are thought to be an important type of ice-nucleating particle (INP) in the mixedphase cloud regime around the globe. While K-rich feldspar (K-feldspar) has been identified as being a particularly important component of mineral dust for ice nucleation, it has been shown that quartz is also relatively ice-nucleation active. Given quartz typically makes up a substantial proportion of atmospheric desert dust, it could potentially be important for cloud glaciation. Here, we survey the ice-nucleating ability of 10 α-quartz samples (the most common quartz polymorph) when immersed in microlitre supercooled water droplets. Despite all samples being α-quartz, the temperature at which they induce freezing varies by around 12 ◦C for a constant active site density. We find that some quartz samples are very sensitive to ageing in both aqueous suspension and air, resulting in a loss of ice-nucleating activity, while other samples are insensitive to exposure to air and water over many months. For example, the ice-nucleation temperatures for one quartz sample shift down by ∼ 2 ◦C in 1 h and 12 ◦C after 16 months in water. The sensitivity to water and air is perhaps surprising, as quartz is thought of as a chemically resistant mineral, but this observation suggests that the active sites responsible for nucleation are less stable than the bulk of the mineral. We find that the quartz group of minerals is generally less active than K-feldspars by roughly 7 ◦C, although the most active quartz samples are of a similar activity to some K-feldspars with an active site density, ns(T ), of 1 cm−2 at −9◦C. We also find that the freshly milled quartz samples are generally more active by roughly 5 ◦C than the plagioclase feldspar group of minerals and the albite end member has an intermediate activity. Using both the new and literature data, active site density parameterizations have been proposed for freshly milled quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase and albite. Combining these parameterizations with the typical atmospheric abundance of each mineral supports previous work that suggests that K-feldspar is the most important ice-nucleating mineral in airborne mineral dust

The STEAMR Instrument: Optical Design, Development & Testing

The STEAMR instrument is a Swedish national contribution to the ESA PREMIER mission, which is a candidate for the upcoming Earth Core Explorer mission. The STEAMR instrument is envisaged as a multi-beam limb sounding satellite, which will utilise 14 simultaneously observing beams in two 12 GHz wide bands from 323 to 357 GHz. To maximize spatial sampling in the elevation direction the observing beams have an elliptical geometry, which defines the incoming beams as being astigmatic. In this paper we present an antenna optics scheme which corrects for this inherent astigmatism, thereby ensuring optimum imaging of the incoming to the circularly symmetric receiver feed horns. Furthermore, the design, synthesis and electromagnetic verification of a prototype focal plane array for the STEAMR instrument is also reported

The role of phase separation and related topography in the exceptional ice-nucleating ability of alkali feldspars

Our understanding of crystal nucleation is a limiting factor in many fields, not least in the atmospheric sciences. It was recently found that feldspar, a component of airborne desert dust, plays a dominant role in triggering ice formation in clouds, but the origin of this effect was unclear. By investigating the structure/property relationships of a wide range of feldspars, we demonstrate that alkali feldspars with certain microtextures, related to phase separation into Na and K-rich regions, show exceptional ice-nucleating abilities in supercooled water. We found no correlation between ice-nucleating efficiency and the crystal structures or the chemical compositions of these active feldspars, which suggests that specific topographical features associated with these microtextures are key in the activity of these feldspars. That topography likely acts to promote ice nucleation, improves our understanding of ice formation in clouds, and may also enable the design and manufacture of bespoke nucleating materials for uses such as cloud seeding and cryopreservation

The study of atmospheric ice-nucleating particles via microfluidically generated droplets

Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) play a significant role in the climate and hydrological cycle by triggering ice formation in supercooled clouds, thereby causing precipitation and affecting cloud lifetimes and their radiative properties. However, despite their importance, INP often comprise only 1 in 10³–10⁶ ambient particles, making it difficult to ascertain and predict their type, source, and concentration. The typical techniques for quantifying INP concentrations tend to be highly labour-intensive, suffer from poor time resolution, or are limited in sensitivity to low concentrations. Here, we present the application of microfluidic devices to the study of atmospheric INPs via the simple and rapid production of monodisperse droplets and their subsequent freezing on a cold stage. This device offers the potential for the testing of INP concentrations in aqueous samples with high sensitivity and high counting statistics. Various INPs were tested for validation of the platform, including mineral dust and biological species, with results compared to literature values. We also describe a methodology for sampling atmospheric aerosol in a manner that minimises sampling biases and which is compatible with the microfluidic device. We present results for INP concentrations in air sampled during two field campaigns: (1) from a rural location in the UK and (2) during the UK’s annual Bonfire Night festival. These initial results will provide a route for deployment of the microfluidic platform for the study and quantification of INPs in upcoming field campaigns around the globe, while providing a benchmark for future lab-on-a-chip-based INP studies

Music as The Between: The Idea of Meeting in Existence, Music and Education

As a violinist, teacher, and thinker, I am concerned to articulate the relevance of music to the lives of my audience, my students and myself. But my concern is not merely to describe the meanings that people experience when they engage music. Rather, I am interested in constituting the musical relevance that each of us must actualize as we work to make our lives vital and meaningful. Accordingly, in my study I articulate in philosophical, yet practical, terms, a particular attitude of musical engagement that I call meeting. Grounded in Martin Buber’s idea of human existence as I-Thou, my conception of meeting has a specific character. Each side of the meeting must meet itself in its work to constitute the adequacy of its engagement with the other as it must meet with the other in its work to constitute the adequacy of its engagement with itself. It follows that the essence of human meeting is not merely the “reality” – physical, cultural, intellectual – of people who come together. Rather, the essence is their self-critical thought that is created as they share their lives with each other. The focus, then, is not the meeting’s outcome but rather the meeting itself insofar as it constitutes mutual understanding, communication and love. Thus, at the heart of my study, I constitute music in the same way, not as a physical or cultural “reality,” but rather as the meeting between music and musical participant that demands that each – music and participant – attend to self and other. The idea that music’s whole being is meeting has profound implications for how we conceive of music education. Accordingly, the ultimate purpose of my study is to bring my ideas of musical meeting to bear upon how we teach and learn music in the classroom.Ph