Global Music Perspectives: Music Outside the Western Canon in Local Schools

As a class, we are designing a research project for investigating how music teachers from counties in South-Central Pennsylvania use music from outside the Western canon (i.e. world music ). We are performing a qualitative study by interviewing k-12 music teachers from school districts in South-Central Pennsylvania. Teachers may choose to participate in a focus group interview with other teachers or in one-on-one interviews. The focus group interview will not exceed two hours and the one-on-one interviews will not exceed an hour. The interviews will be guided using a questionnaire (see attached), but the conversation may deviate from these questions at the discretion of the interviewer(s). We will transcribe these interviews to extract common thematic materials and relevant information. We will also compile a literature review of relevant peer-reviewed articles and use the data from said articles to expand upon our gathered information

Electroweak radiative corrections to deep-inelastic neutrino scattering - implications for NuTeV ?

We calculate the O(alpha) electroweak corrections to charged- and neutral-current deep-inelastic neutrino scattering off an isoscalar target. The full one-loop-corrected cross sections, including hard photonic corrections, are evaluated and compared to an earlier result which was used in the NuTeV analysis. In particular, we compare results that differ in input-parameter scheme, treatment of real photon radiation and factorization scheme. The associated shifts in the theoretical prediction for the ratio of neutral- and charged-current cross sections can be larger than the experimental accuracy of the NuTeV result.Comment: 19 pages late

Accurate evaluation of the interstitial KKR-Green function

It is shown that the Brillouin zone integral for the interstitial KKR-Green function can be evaluated accurately by taking proper care of the free-electron singularities in the integrand. The proposed method combines two recently developed methods, a supermatrix method and a subtraction method. This combination appears to provide a major improvement compared with an earlier proposal based on the subtraction method only. By this the barrier preventing the study of important interstitial-like defects, such as an electromigrating atom halfway along its jump path, can be considered as being razed.Comment: 23 pages, RevTe

Charge injection instability in perfect insulators

We show that in a macroscopic perfect insulator, charge injection at a field-enhancing defect is associated with an instability of the insulating state or with bistability of the insulating and the charged state. The effect of a nonlinear carrier mobility is emphasized. The formation of the charged state is governed by two different processes with clearly separated time scales. First, due to a fast growth of a charge-injection mode, a localized charge cloud forms near the injecting defect (or contact). Charge injection stops when the field enhancement is screened below criticality. Secondly, the charge slowly redistributes in the bulk. The linear instability mechanism and the final charged steady state are discussed for a simple model and for cylindrical and spherical geometries. The theory explains an experimentally observed increase of the critical electric field with decreasing size of the injecting contact. Numerical results are presented for dc and ac biased insulators.Comment: Revtex, 7pages, 4 ps figure

Charge distribution and electroluminescence in cross-linked polyethylene under dc field

The intent of this paper is to cross-correlate the information obtained by space charge distribution analysis and electroluminescence (EL) detection in cross-linked polyethylene samples submitted to dc fields, with the objective to make a link between space charge phenomena and energy release as revealed by the detection of visible photons. Space charge measurements carried out at different field levels by the pulsed electro-acoustic method show the presence of a low-field threshold, close to 15-20 kV mm-1, above which considerable space charge begins to accumulate in the insulation. Charges are seen to cross the insulation thickness through a packet-like behaviour at higher fields, starting at about 60-70 kV mm-1. EL measurements show the existence of two distinct thresholds, one related to the continuous excitation of EL under voltage, the other being transient EL detected upon specimen short circuit. The former occurs at values of field corresponding to charge packet formation and the latter to the onset of space charge accumulation. The correspondence between pertinent values of the electric field obtained through space charge and EL analyses provides support for the existence of degradation thresholds in insulating materials. Special emphasis is given to the relationship between charge packet formation and propagation, and EL. Although the two phenomena are observed in the same field range, it is found that the onset of continuous EL follows the formation at the electrodes of positive and negative space charge regions that extend into the bulk prior to the propagation of charge packets. Charge recombination appears to be the excitation process of EL since oppositely charged domains meet in the material bulk. To gain an insight into specific light-excitation processes associated with charge packet propagation, EL has been recorded for several hours under fields at which charge packet dynamics were evidenced. It is shown that current and luminescence oscillations are detected during charge packet propagation, and that they are in phase. The mechanisms underlying EL and charge packets are further considered on the basis of these results

Analysis of the vibrational mode spectrum of a linear chain with spatially exponential properties

We deduce the dynamic frequency-domain-lattice Green's function of a linear chain with properties (masses and next-neighbor spring constants) of exponential spatial dependence. We analyze the system as discrete chain as well as the continuous limiting case which represents an elastic I D exponentially graded material. The discrete model yields closed form expressions for the N x N Green's function for an arbitrary number N = 2,...,infinity of particles of the chain. Utilizing this Green's function yields an explicit expression for the vibrational mode density. Despite of its simplicity the model reflects some characteristics of the dynamics of a I D exponentially graded elastic material. As a special case the well-known expressions for the Green's function and oscillator density of the homogeneous linear chain are contained in the model. The width of the frequency band is determined by the grading parameter which characterizes the exponential spatial dependence of the properties. In the limiting case of large grading parameter, the frequency band is localized around a single finite frequency where the band width tends to zero inversely with the grading parameter. In the continuum limit the discrete Green's function recovers the Green's function of the continuous equation of motion which takes in the time domain the form of a Klein-Gordon equation. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Adult reference levels in diagnostic and interventional radiology for temporary use in Switzerland

This work aims at establishing a set of diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) for various types of examinations performed in diagnostic and interventional radiology. The average doses for 257 types of radiological examinations were established during the 1998 nationwide survey on the exposure of the Swiss population by radiodiagnostics. They were calculated using appropriate dosimetric models and average technical parameters. The DRLs were derived from the average doses using a multiplying factor of 1.5. The DRLs obtained were rounded and compared to the data reported in the literature. The results are in most cases comparable to the DRLs determined by the 3rd-quartile method. These discrepancies registered in some cases, particularly for complex examinations, can be explained by significant differences in the protocols and/or the technical parameters used. A set of DRLs is proposed for a large number of examinations to be used in Switzerland as temporary values until a national dosimetric database is set u

THE ACCUSED IS ENTERING THE COURTROOM: THE LIVE-TWEETING OF A MURDER TRIAL.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThe use of social media is now widely accepted within journalism as an outlet for news information. Live tweeting of unfolding events is standard practice. In March 2014, Oscar Pistorius went on trial in the Gauteng High Court for murder. Hundreds of journalists present began live-tweeting coverage, an unprecedented combination of international interest, permission to use technology and access which resulted in massive streams of consciousness reports of events as they unfolded. Based on a corpus of Twitter feeds of twenty-four journalists covering the trial, this study analyses the content and strategies of these feeds in order to present an understanding of how microblogging is used as a live reporting tool. This study shows the development of standardised language and strategies in reporting on Twitter, concluding that journalists adopt a narrow range of approaches, with no significant variation in terms of gender, location, or medium. This is in contrast to earlier studies in the field (Awad, 2006, Hedman, 2015; Kothari, 2010; Lariscy, Avery, Sweetser, & Howes, 2009 Lasorsa, 2012; Lasorsa, Lewis, & Holton, 2011; Sigal, 1999, Vis, 2013).Peer reviewe

The impact of credit constraints on the adoption of hybrid maize in Malawi

This paper investigates the impact of credit constraints on the adoption of hybrid maize among rural households in Malawi. To address the endogenous and binary nature of the household's credit constraints status, we employ a treatment-effects model to consistently estimate the effect of credit constraints. Results reveal that after effectively correcting for endogeneity, credit constraints have a negative and significant effect on the amount of land allocated to hybrid maize. Results also show that farmers with larger land holdings allocate more land to hybrid maize. Although less likely to report credit constraints, older farmers allocate less land to hybrid maize than younger farmers. These findings suggest that there is scope for increasing the cultivation of hybrid maize in Malawi if credit is targeted at younger farmers that are credit-constrained