The elements of neoclassical style in the women's choir compositions of Irving Fine

The composer Irving Fine died in 1962 at the age of forty-seven cutting short the life of an important figure in twentieth-century American music. Since Fine's life was relatively short, his musical output is proportionally small and often goes unstudied. Fine's contribution to the choral genre is particularly small but offers a unique perspective of composing for choir. Fine's complete oeuvre includes music in many genres that can stylistically be divided into two categories; tonal-neoclassical and atonal-neoclassical. Fine's early instrumental compositions are decidedly tonal-neoclassical and ultimately become serially based, a style that characterizes most of his later works. While Fine's instrumental music developed towards atonality, his works for women's choir did not. The choral music for women's choir remained rooted in the tonal-neoclassical style of his early period. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Irving Fine composed choral music for women's choir in an operative and nuanced style of choral writing that remained effectively tonally based and in the neoclassical style as understood and applied by Fine and his colleagues. This document places the selected choral works in context through a brief biography and discussion of neoclassicism as the term was understood during Fine's compositional period. The biography "Irving Fine: A Composer in His Time" by Phillip Ramey and information from the Irving Fine Collection at the Library of Congress are the primary sources of biographical information. The remainder of this paper is a detailed examination of Fine's treatment of musical form, harmony and character in his compositions for women's choir. Through this examination, Fine's music will be shown to function within criteria of tonal-neoclassicism as understood and practiced by Fine and his colleagues

Editorial: Heat acclimation for special populations

Editorial on the Research Topic: Heat Acclimation for Special Populations: This heat acclimation for special population's Research Topic questions the "one size fits all" approach for heat adaptation and that it may not be appropriate for all populations. Therefore, to highlight these differences we endeavored to collect a set of studies on how heat acclimation may benefit a wide range of special populations who have specific needs. We have published 12 articles in this Research Topic and defined four main areas of research. (a) an epidemiological approach and the aging process; (b) understanding physiological mechanisms and a novel heat acclimation method; (c) adaptation to the heat for special populations including males, females, military personnel and Paralympic athletes; and (d) the use of heat therapy for special populations. We have summarized the most noteworthy evidence of each study in these research areas

Middle school science teachers' conceptions of the nature of scientific knowledge

The purpose of this interpretive inquiry study was to ascertain the conceptions of the nature of scientific knowledge of middle school science teachers. Initially, a model of the nature of scientific knowledge was developed from the literature. Scientific knowledge is characterized as humanistic, social, historical, based on specific beliefs, observation based, a result of inquiry, composed of knowledge structures, and unique. The model served as a comprehensive framework against which to compare teachers' conceptions of the nature of scientific knowledge. The study involved six successful middle school science teachers from urban and suburban/rural school districts. Each subject participated in two unstructured interviews with the researcher. Results indicate that the teachers possessed a somewhat idealistic view of scientists, a limited conception of the role of scientific communities in the production of knowledge, a confusion of science and technology, a conception of a standardized methodology in science, a positivist perspective of knowledge, and a realist/pluralistic realist view of knowledge. In addition, subjects confused the functions of laws and theories, possessed a popular conception of scientific facts, viewed historical knowledge as cumulative, and had difficulty relating the basic assumptions of science as well as other ways of knowing. Therefore, the study found that the subjects possessed a less than adequate view of the nature of scientific knowledge

On the Quadratic Sieve

Factoring large integers has long been a subject that has interested mathematicians. And although this interest has been recently increased because of the large usage of cryptography, the thought of factoring integers that are hundreds of digits in length has always been appealing. However it was not until the 1980's that this even seemed fathomable; in fact in 1970 it was extremely difficult to factor a 20-digit number. Then in 1990 the Quadratic Sieve factored a record 116-digit number. While the Quadratic Sieve is not the most recent development in factoring, it is more efficient for factoring numbers below 100-digits than the Number Field Sieve. This paper will discuss the methodology behind the Quadratic Sieve, beginning in its roots in Fermat and Kraitchik's factoring methods. Furthermore our objective is to fully describe the Quadratic Sieve with the goal that the reader could implement a reproduction of the sieve for small numbers

Cultural values and wellness of Native American high school students

Research has suggested that cultural conflicts and the process of acculturation contribute to feelings of boredom, anxiety, depression, isolation, stress, self-doubt, alienation, and rejection in Native American students. These factors also have a negative impact on identity development and wellness of these students. The problem addressed in this study was the relationship between cultural value orientation, level of acculturation, and wellness among Native American high school students. To fully explore this relationship, some comparison to non-Native American high school students was necessary. Exploration of the three variables of cultural value orientation, level of acculturation, and wellness was to include both a between-group value comparison of Native American and non-Native American students and a within-group comparison of Native American students on the three variables

Tertius Romane: An Examination Of Muscovite Mystical Political Theology

The relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian state has received less than required academic attention. In the post-Soviet space, the Russian Church has again begun to interact with the Russian state. Through research of Russian primary sources including chronicles, vitae of princes, and various correspondence, this paper traces the origins of the relationship between Church and State and examines both the mystical and political theological actualities of such. This thesis demonstrates similarities, historical themes, and aspects of Church and State interactions through a comparison to Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology that can be applied to examine modern day Russian Church and State political theology

Segmentation and Extraction of Individual Leaves from Plant Images for Species Classification

Plant species classification through the examination of images of plant leaves requires as input an image of a single leaf with no stems or other non-leaf objects. Images of plants, however, usually include more than one leaf, stems, branches, flowers, and other non-leaf objects. For such images each individual leaf needs to be extracted into a unique sub-image, and these sub-images must be cleaned to remove all non-leaf objects. A target leaf could then be selected from the group of sub-images to be provided as the input to the plant species classification program. As a part of the research on this thesis, an algorithm was developed to automate the tasks of detecting and extracting leaf sub-images from plant images and to clean the leaf sub-images by removing all non-leaf objects. To implement the algorithm, software was developed in Java. The proposed algorithm produced at least one perfect leaf result in 18 of the 21 (86%) plant images used in this research, while the remaining three (14%) plant images produced acceptable leaves

Instability of contingencies of self-worth: the role of approach-avoidance temperament

Self-esteem has multiple facets and individuals can derive their feelings of self-worth from specific domains in life (i.e., competition, approval of others, virtue; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Additionally, research on self-esteem suggests that it evolved as a social monitoring system, known as the sociometer (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). The function of the sociometer is to alert individuals to changes in their relational value to others, which in turn influences their self-esteem, and ultimately their behavior (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Park & Crocker, 2008). A better understanding of the connection between self-evaluations and behavior can be gained by considering how individuals derive their feelings of self-worth. While people are motivated to succeed and avoid failure, this may particularly be true in the domains from which people derive their feelings of self-worth. Additionally, approach-avoidance motivation may further influence the relationship between evaluations in contingent domains, self-esteem, and behavioral outcomes. The present study expands this research by investigating how approach-avoidance motivation affects the relationship between contingencies of self-worth, self-esteem, and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, I hypothesized that individuals with low self-esteem and avoidance motivation would shift away from a domain that receives negative feedback. Those with high self-esteem and approach motivation, however, would increase the value placed on a domain after receiving negative feedback and positive feedback. Results suggest that avoidantly motivated individuals’ self-worth became increasingly contingent upon other’s approval no matter the feedback they received

Assertive discipline : portrait of an effective elementary school discipline program

The purpose of this study is to expose administrators and teachers to a competency-based systematic approach to discipline. The program, known as Lee Canter's Approach to Assertive Discipline, is presently used at North Canton Elementary School in Canton, North Carolina. It is grounded in the commitment to a positive educational environment for both teachers and students. Through the use of portraiture, a qualitative research methodology, the researcher will present a detailed description of the program. Included are guidelines for developing and implementing the program in public schools. This study will demonstrate how educators can effectively deal with student behavior problems in a confident, take-charge manner. Administrators and teachers will be interested in the findings of this study because student behavior issues surface daily. Also, educators can establish firm, consistent limits for all students and a positive educational environment for both teachers and students

Effect Of The Catch Position On Power Characteristics In Snatch Derivatives

This study investigates precipitation delivery using the first detailed radar measurements of the vertical structure of precipitation obtained in the tropical Andes of southern Peru and Bolivia. A vertically pointing 24.1 GHz Micro Rain Radar in Cusco, Peru (3,350 m asl, August 2014-February 2015) and La Paz, Bolivia (3,440 m asl, October 2015-February 2017) provided continuous 1-min profiles of reflectivity and Doppler velocity during the respective time periods. Additional datasets collected include thermodynamic profiles from rawinsonde releases, hourly observations of various meteorological variables, and backward air trajectories from the NOAA HYSPLIT model. The vertically-pointing radar time-height data reveal a bimodal diurnal cycle in precipitation with cellular convection predominant in the afternoon and stratiform precipitation predominant overnight. Backward air trajectories for two stratiform case studies indicate that low-level flow originated in the Amazon basin three days prior to the events. Median melting layer heights were above the altitude of nearby glacier termini (~5,000 m) approximately 17% of the time in Cusco and 30% of the time in La Paz, indicating that some precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow on nearby glacier surfaces. Melting layer heights were highest in La Paz during the 2015-16 El Niño (47% above 5,000 m)