Race and Policing: An Agenda for Action

This paper is organized into two parts -- Strategic Voice and Tactical Agency. Strategic Voice argues that problems of race in policing cannot be resolved by the police alone. Other people must help by understanding and ameliorating the social conditions that cause race to be associated with crime and hence become a dilemma for American policing. Rather than accepting these conditions as givens, police leaders with their powerful collective voice should actively call attention to what needs to be changed. Tactical Agency outlines what the police can do on their own initiative to deal with the operational dilemmas of race -- in the communities they serve and in their own organizations

Communicating through notation: Michael Finnissy’s Second String Quartet from composition to performance

This article looks behind the scenes at the notational and interpretative issues arising from the compositional and rehearsal processes embodied in the Second String Quartet by Michael Finnissy, written for the Kreutzer Quartet in 2006-07. The relationship between the individual parts and corporate whole, as represented by the score, or quasi-score, or even the absence of a score, has been of central importance in all of Finnissy’s quartet music to date. Recorded evidence from the rehearsal of the piece is evaluated from both ‘insider’and ‘outsider’ perspectives to demonstrate the extent to which players need to devise new interpretative strategies in response to the specific demands of the notation. Examination of composer-performer interactions reveals how the limits of notation can provide creative tension and imaginative interpretation that contribute to a developing contemporary performance practice

Ethnicity and alcohol: a review of the UK literature

This literature review draws together recorded drinking patterns among minority ethnic groups in the UK over the last 15 years and considers the evidence for service provision and support. A recommendation in implementing the Government’s alcohol strategy, Safe. Sensible. Social. is to assess the need for and develop provision for black and minority ethnic groups. This need is heightened by the growing minority ethnic population and changes in consumption levels that may emerge over generations. The review explores differences in drinking patterns by ethnicity and the cultural and social contexts around which the use of alcohol is established and maintained. This review: • describes drinking levels as reported in national surveys and local research; • considers processes and infl uences that help to explain why drinking rates among ethnic groups in a new country may change over time; • examines help-seeking, support and service provision for minority ethnic groups; • examines the extent to which services are equipped to respond to the needs of minority ethnic groups

Creative layers and continuities: a case study of Nicole Lizée and the Kronos Quartet

This study examines the creative layers and continuities evident within the composition and rehearsal processes of Nicole Lizée’s Golden Age of the Radiophonic Workshop (Fibre-Optic Flowers), written for the Kronos Quartet in 2012. Lizée’s compositional approach to the historic and the new, and the mechanical and the human, are interpreted through Simon Emmerson’s three themes of combination, transformation, and control, and his three “impulses within composition” that combine live and acousmatic soundworlds – integration, antithesis, and co-existence. These concepts also help to articulate the way the players engage with the physical, psychological, and expressive demands of the piece. Discussions arising from the Kronos Quartet rehearsing the piece with the composer reveal how extensions are made to the performers’ mind and body experiences when they are required both to initiate and integrate sounds emanating from unfamiliar, analogue machines into their acoustic, yet amplified soundworld. Creative layers and continuities are seen to evolve from compositional experimentation and from composer–performer and co-performer dialogues in rehearsal in the BBC Maida Vale studio prior to the world premiere at a BBC Prom concert on 24 July 2012

Whose difference? Whose 'multiculturalism'?

Does the language of ‘multiculturalism’ reinforce or transcend difference? And whose purpose do such discourses serve? Whilst a number of writers have sought to refine the the discussion by suggesting alternative terms such as ‘inter-cultural’ or ‘trans-cultural’, few have problematised the notion of ‘culture’ in this particular context (notwithstanding the extensive literature on ‘culture’ as a concept more broadly). Specifically, in relation to music, there is a relatively new and growing ethno-musicological literature documenting collaborative projects of various kinds, mostly based – and led and funded by musicians and organisations - in the cosmopolitan urban centres of the ‘global north’. Such collaborations are not new, of course, but have received added impetus by factors such as the emergence of the ‘world music’ industry from the 1980s, the rise of digital communications technologies, and increased human mobilities of various kinds. Like the broader lay and marketing discourses, much of this scholarly work is celebratory in tone; relatively little of it engages critically with issues such as the power relations involved in such cultural ‘exchanges’. In particular, the language of multiculturalism - including talk about exploring the spaces ‘between’ cultures - is predicated on a view of culture as relatively stable and bounded, rather than as a fluid and ongoing process. Viewed from the latter perspective, all cultures are arguably ‘multi’. This paper will explore these questions with reference to several ‘cross-cultural’ projects, including Ukranian singer Mariana Sadovska’s collaborations with the Kronos Quartet and German percussionist Christian Thomé; and Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor’s work with the Kronos Quartet and the Silk Road Ensemble. We explore the discourses by which these musicians and others position their work in relation to perceived cultural boundaries and ask whether those participating in such ‘multicultural’ projects are not in fact often from the same cultural formation (Turino 2003) sharing more culturally than the discourses of ‘multiculturalism’ allow for, and reinforcing an essentialised privileging of difference over shared commonalities (Agawu 2003)

A continuous model for microtubule dynamics with catastrophe, rescue and nucleation processes

Microtubules are a major component of the cytoskeleton distinguished by highly dynamic behavior both in vitro and in vivo. We propose a general mathematical model that accounts for the growth, catastrophe, rescue and nucleation processes in the polymerization of microtubules from tubulin dimers. Our model is an extension of various mathematical models developed earlier formulated in order to capture and unify the various aspects of tubulin polymerization including the dynamic instability, growth of microtubules to saturation, time-localized periods of nucleation and depolymerization as well as synchronized oscillations exhibited by microtubules under various experimental conditions. Our model, while attempting to use a minimal number of adjustable parameters, covers a broad range of behaviors and has predictive features discussed in the paper. We have analyzed the resultant behaviors of the microtubules changing each of the parameter values at a time and observing the emergence of various dynamical regimes.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure

Why Do Cascade Sizes Follow a Power-Law?

We introduce random directed acyclic graph and use it to model the information diffusion network. Subsequently, we analyze the cascade generation model (CGM) introduced by Leskovec et al. [19]. Until now only empirical studies of this model were done. In this paper, we present the first theoretical proof that the sizes of cascades generated by the CGM follow the power-law distribution, which is consistent with multiple empirical analysis of the large social networks. We compared the assumptions of our model with the Twitter social network and tested the goodness of approximation.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted to WWW 201

A comparison of the modern and classic golf swing: a clinician's perspective

Objective. There is little descriptive research on the motion the body displays during the golf swing. The purpose of this research is to review the modern golf swing and compare its motion to the classic golf swing. Discussion. The comparison revealed subtle but significant differences in the backswing and the follow-through positions. The potential implications for power and injury, particularly of the lower back, are discussed. The discussion describes a third swing, the hybrid swing, which is a combination of the classic and modern swing. The hybrid swing may potentially reduce the chances of sustaining a low back injury while still retaining the power of the modern swing. Conclusion. The golf swing has evolved over time as a result of a combination of advanced equipment, course design and human experimentation. The hybrid swing is being taught by some golf professionals as a balance between the power-potential of the modern swing and the ‘back-friendly\' nature of the classic swing, though no studies have so far been conducted on its efficacy. Further investigation into the three golf swings, classic, modern and hybrid, is required to determine which swing is the most effective while also being friendly to the body. Such research will make possible the development programmes aimed at reducing golf injury rates, particularly to the lower back. South African Journal of Sports Medicine Vol. 18 (3) 2006: pp. 80-9