A Comparative Analysis of Speech Level Singing and Traditional Vocal Training in the United States

American voice teacher Seth Riggs has spent the bulk of his career developing and marketing a technique for singing called Speech Levle Singing (SLS). It is a technique based on keeping the singing voice as closely related ot the speaking voice as possible. His claim is that one can use this technique to successfully sing any style of msic, from opera to the newest pop/rock song. Traditionally in the United States most voice teachers, whether in a private studio or affiliated with a college or conservatory, teach a technique based on the traditional classical music of Western Europe. The goal of this document is to compare the philosophies and practices of Riggs\u27s training (for both his studnents and the teachers that get certifiied to teach SLS) to the philosophies and practices of more traditional teachers in the United States. The writings in Seth Riggs\u27s book on vocal technique, Singing for the Stars, are compared to those of four distinguished authors on the subject of vocal pedagogy: Richard Miller, Oren Brown, Jerome Hines, and David Jones. Some authors help to back up Riggs\u27s beliefs on healthy singing while others vehementy disagree with Riggs\u27s approach. In addition to comparing literature, seven singers who have studied both classical singing and SLS were interviewed via an emailed questionnaire. The insight of singers who have studied both techniques is very beneficial for understanding how the two either compliment or contradict each other. The art of singing is so subjective that is is nearly impossible to come up with a concrete conclusion as to which approach to singing is best. However, with the amount of influence SLS (and other speech related approaches to singing) is currenntly having wiht the younger generation of American singers, a greater understanding of its merits and drawbacks should be the goal of any teacher of singing

A Study of the Southern Spotted Channel Catfish, Ictalurus Punctatus (Rafinesque)

The purpose of the present study is to present research data on the propagation of the southern spotted channel catfish

Phonon Density of States and Anharmonicity of UO2

Phonon density of states (PDOS) measurements have been performed on polycrystalline UO2 at 295 and 1200 K using time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering to investigate the impact of anharmonicity on the vibrational spectra and to benchmark ab initio PDOS simulations performed on this strongly correlated Mott-insulator. Time-of-flight PDOS measurements include anharmonic linewidth broadening inherently and the factor of ~ 7 enhancement of the oxygen spectrum relative to the uranium component by the neutron weighting increases sensitivity to the oxygen-dominated optical phonon modes. The first-principles simulations of quasi-harmonic PDOS spectra were neutron-weighted and anharmonicity was introduced in an approximate way by convolution with wavevector-weighted averages over our previously measured phonon linewidths for UO2 that are provided in numerical form. Comparisons between the PDOS measurements and the simulations show reasonable agreement overall, but they also reveal important areas of disagreement for both high and low temperatures. The discrepancies stem largely from an ~ 10 meV compression in the overall bandwidth (energy range) of the oxygen-dominated optical phonons in the simulations. A similar linewidth-convoluted comparison performed with the PDOS spectrum of Dolling et al. obtained by shell-model fitting to their historical phonon dispersion measurements shows excellent agreement with the time-of-flight PDOS measurements reported here. In contrast, we show by comparisons of spectra in linewidth-convoluted form that recent first-principles simulations for UO2 fail to account for the PDOS spectrum determined from the measurements of Dolling et al. These results demonstrate PDOS measurements to be stringent tests for ab initio simulations of phonon physics in UO2 and they indicate further the need for advances in theory to address lattice dynamics of UO2.Comment: Text slightly modified, results unchange

Variations in the quality of care of patients with acute myocardial infarction among Swiss university hospitals

Objectives. The objective of our study was to assess hospital variations in the quality of care delivered to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients among three Swiss academic medical centres. Design. Cross-sectional study. Setting. Three Swiss university hospitals. Study participants. We selected 1129 eligible patients discharged from these hospitals from 1 January to 31 December 1999, with a primary or secondary diagnosis code [International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10)] of AMI. We abstracted medical records for information on demographic characteristics, risk factors, symptoms, and findings at admission. We also recorded the main ECG and laboratory findings, as well as hospital and discharge management and treatment. We excluded patients transferred to another hospital and who did not meet the clinical definition of AMI. Main outcome measures. Percentage of patients receiving appropriate intervention as defined by six quality of care indicators derived from clinical practical guidelines. Results. Among 577 eligible patients with AMI in this study, the mean (SD) age was 68.2 (13.9), and 65% were male. In the assessment of the quality indicators we excluded patients who were not eligible for the procedure. Among cohorts of ‘ideal candidates' for specific interventions, 64% in hospital A and 73% in hospital C had reperfusion within 12 hours either with thrombolytics or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (P = 0.367). Further, in hospitals A, B, and C, respectively 97, 94, and 84% were prescribed aspirin during the initial hospitalization (P = 0.0002), and respectively 68, 91, and 75% received angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors at discharge in the case of left ventricular systolic dysfunction (P = 0.003). Conclusions. Our results showed important hospital-to-hospital variations in the quality of care provided to patients with AMI between these three university hospital