Choral Theatre

Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962, after some 300 years of colonization. Prior to Independence, the standard arts education curriculum was decidedly British and Western European. That which was labeled Caribbean or Jamaican “folk” by the British was deemed inferior and was not taught, demonstrated, or performed in formal settings. Thus, generations of Jamaicans never observed or imagined a Caribbean aesthetic in the visual and performing arts. Instead, pre-Independence Jamaicans were taught British and Western European music and performed it the “British” way. Today, Jamaicans boast a number of artistic developments that are instantly recognized across the globe as being “Jamaican.” One such development in choral music is choral theatre, the performance style of The University Singers of The University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Through its choral theatre performances, The University Singers has established itself as a cultural ambassador for Jamaica and the entire Caribbean region. This performance practice incorporates the use of lighting, instrumentation, staging, costuming, and gesture. The University Singers presents its diverse repertoire—including choral standards from Western Europe and choral arrangements of Caribbean and Jamaican popular music—in the choral theatre style during its annual concert season in its campus home, the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts

An examination of Kindling's effect on spatial cognition

Kindling involves the progressive development of epileptiform activity that culminates in generalized seizures in response to repeated electrical stimulation of the brain. Kindling induces widespread changes in synaptic sensitivity and neuronal reactivity. These neuroplastic changes are evident in altered memory and behavior. This research was designed to further our understanding of kindling-induced deficits in spatial cognition. Two questions were examined: 1)does entorhinal cortex kindling disrupt spatial cognition; and 2)can bilateral bifocal kindling, of two brain regions known to participate in spatial cognition, produce larger cognitive deficits than unifocal kindling? This research attempted to confirm the spatial cognitive effects produced by unifocal dorsal hippocampal (dHPC) kindling, as a positive control. In contrast, the spatial cognitive effects produce by unifocal entorhinal cortex (EC) and bifocal kindling (i.e., EC kindling with subsequent contralateral dHPC kindling) are unknown and were examined here. Rats were subjected to unifocal EC kindling, unifocal dHPC kindling, or bifocal kindling. Rats exhibited fully generalized seizures prior to Morris water maze training from days 2 to 31. Visible platform trials were used to examine escape motivation and gross motor coordination, and all groups performed adequately. Consistent with previous research, dHPC kindling disrupted performance during acquisition trials; however, EC and bifocal kindling failed to disrupt acquisition. During retention trials, the bifocal kindling group displayed a disruption in performance; however, dHPC and lateral EC kindling failed to affect retention. The bifocal kindled group failed to display larger deficits than the unifocal kindled groups. These data suggest that the number of kindling stimulations given to a particular site may play a critical role in site-dependent disruption of memory

Our Quarrels Dear

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5978/thumbnail.jp

Coarse guidance by numerosity in visual search

In five experiments, we examined whether the number of items can guide visual focal attention. Observers searched for the target area with the largest (or smallest) number of dots (squares in Experiment 4 and "checkerboards” in Experiment 5) among distractor areas with a smaller (or larger) number of dots. Results of Experiments 1 and 2 show that search efficiency is determined by target to distractor dot ratios. In searches where target items contained more dots than did distractor items, ratios over 1.5:1 yielded efficient search. Searches for targets where target items contained fewer dots than distractor items were harder. Here, ratios needed to be lower than 1:2 to yield efficient search. When the areas of the dots and of the squares containing them were fixed, as they were in Experiments 1 and 2, dot density and total dot area increased as dot number increased. Experiment 3 removed the density and area cues by allowing dot size and total dot area to vary. This produced a marked decline in search performance. Efficient search now required ratios of above 3:1 or below 1:3. By using more realistic and isoluminant stimuli, Experiments 4 and 5 show that guidance by numerosity is fragile. As is found with other features that guide focal attention (e.g., color, orientation, size), the numerosity differences that are able to guide attention by bottom-up signals are much coarser than the differences that can be detected in attended stimul

The Evolution of Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies: Disks or Spheroids?

Luminous compact blue galaxies (LCBGs) are a diverse class of galaxies characterized by high luminosity, blue color, and high surface brightness that sit at the critical juncture of galaxies evolving from the blue to the red sequence. As part of our multi-wavelength survey of local LCBGs, we have been studying the HI content of these galaxies using both single-dish telescopes and interferometers. Our goals are to determine if single-dish HI observations represent a true measure of the dynamical mass of LCBGs and to look for signatures of recent interactions that may be triggering star formation in LCBGs. Our data show that while some LCBGs are undergoing interactions, many appear isolated. While all LCBGs contain HI and show signatures of rotation, the population does not lie on the Tully-Fisher relation nor can it evolve onto it. Furthermore, the HI maps of many LCBGs show signatures of dynamically hot components, suggesting that we are seeing the formation of a thick disk or spheroid in at least some LCBGs. There is good agreement between the HI and H-alpha kinematics for LCBGs, and both are similar in appearance to the H-alpha kinematics of high redshift star-forming galaxies. Our combined data suggest that star formation in LCBGs is primarily quenched by virial heating, consistent with model predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 277, "Tracing the Ancestry of Galaxies on the Land of our Ancestors", eds. C. Carignan, K.C. Freeman, and F. Combe

Subvalvular left ventricular pseudoaneurysm after mitral valve replacement: Two-dimensional echocardiographic findings

Disruption of the posterior mitral anulus is a rare complication of mitral valve replacement that may result in subvalvular left ventricular pseudoaneurysm formation. Such pseudoaneurysm formation was easily recognized by two-dimensional echocardiography in a 54 year old man 3 years after his second mitral valve replacement.The finding was confirmed by cineangiography and direct surgical inspection. Recognition of this rare complication of mitral valve replacement has therapeutic importance because surgical correction is necessary

Dual Axis Solar Panel Tracker

Photovoltaic systems generate more energy when orthogonally facing the sun where solar cells absorb the most light. By creating an effective, autonomous solar tracking system, the developed solar panels consistently generate maximum energy while using less power. Dual axis solar trackers surpass single axis trackers in energy generation, however, their cost and reliability provide a significant drawback. This project develops different algorithmic implementations designed to provide optimal and efficient behavior for photovoltaic systems. These algorithms adjust the solar panel’s position appropriately with the sun’s location, weather conditions, and selected operating modes. The solar tracking system’s operations include latitudinal axis capability , longitudinal axis capability , dual axis capability, manual or demo mode, and a reset mode setting the panels flat parallel to the ground

Nucleic Acid Sequence Design via Efficient Ensemble Defect Optimization

We describe an algorithm for designing the sequence of one or more interacting nucleic acid strands intended to adopt a target secondary structure at equilibrium. Sequence design is formulated as an optimization problem with the goal of reducing the ensemble defect below a user-specified stop condition. For a candidate sequence and a given target secondary structure, the ensemble defect is the average number of incorrectly paired nucleotides at equilibrium evaluated over the ensemble of unpseudoknotted secondary structures. To reduce the computational cost of accepting or rejecting mutations to a random initial sequence, candidate mutations are evaluated on the leaf nodes of a tree-decomposition of the target structure. During leaf optimization, defect-weighted mutation sampling is used to select each candidate mutation position with probability proportional to its contribution to the ensemble defect of the leaf. As subsequences are merged moving up the tree, emergent structural defects resulting from crosstalk between sibling sequences are eliminated via reoptimization within the defective subtree starting from new random subsequences. Using a Θ(N^3) dynamic program to evaluate the ensemble defect of a target structure with N nucleotides, this hierarchical approach implies an asymptotic optimality bound on design time: for sufficiently large N, the cost of sequence design is bounded below by 4/3 the cost of a single evaluation of the ensemble defect for the full sequence. Hence, the design algorithm has time complexity Ω(N^3). For target structures containing N ∈{100,200,400,800,1600,3200} nucleotides and duplex stems ranging from 1 to 30 base pairs, RNA sequence designs at 37°C typically succeed in satisfying a stop condition with ensemble defect less than N/100. Empirically, the sequence design algorithm exhibits asymptotic optimality and the exponent in the time complexity bound is shar