Disciplining Knowledge in Music Theory: Abstraction and the Recovery of Dialectics

A critical rethinking of disciplinary tendencies in music theory reveals several important historical moments when the process of abstraction has reshaped aspects of tonal theory in profound ways, notably in the areas of counterpoint, harmony, and form. These moments of abstraction prioritize one musical feature over others, and frequently involve a discursive process of dissociation to solidify the legitimacy of the abstraction and resolve lingering logical contradictions. This often leads to a theoretical and historical distancing from the contexts in which certain practices emerged, and risks severing aesthetic connections between technique and meaning. The resulting imbalance in one or more of three dialectical pairs has additional disciplinary consequences, and invites renewed interest in three theoretical perspectives that can recognize changing musical concepts and at the same time recover some of the latent meanings buried in tonal music. These perspectives have received some attention in recent music analysis; in this article I wish to call attention to their deeper disciplinary role in compensating theoretical abstraction and dialectically mapping our theoretical field

Association of a MET genetic variant with autism-associated maternal autoantibodies to fetal brain proteins and cytokine expression.

The contribution of peripheral immunity to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) risk is debated and poorly understood. Some mothers of children with ASD have autoantibodies that react to fetal brain proteins, raising the possibility that a subset of ASD cases may be associated with a maternal antibody response during gestation. The mechanism by which the maternal immune system breaks tolerance has not been addressed. We hypothesized that the mechanism may involve decreased expression of the MET receptor tyrosine kinase, an ASD risk gene that also serves as a key negative regulator of immune responsiveness. In a sample of 365 mothers, including 202 mothers of children with ASD, the functional MET promoter variant rs1858830 C allele was strongly associated with the presence of an ASD-specific 37+73-kDa band pattern of maternal autoantibodies to fetal brain proteins (P=0.003). To determine the mechanism of this genetic association, we measured MET protein and cytokine production in freshly prepared peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 76 mothers of ASD and typically developing children. The MET rs1858830 C allele was significantly associated with MET protein expression (P=0.025). Moreover, decreased expression of the regulatory cytokine IL-10 was associated with both the MET gene C allele (P=0.001) and reduced MET protein levels (P=0.002). These results indicate genetic distinction among mothers who produce ASD-associated antibodies to fetal brain proteins, and suggest a potential mechanism for how a genetically determined decrease in MET protein production may lead to a reduction in immune regulation

Branching rules for the subgroups of the unitary group

Expressions are given in terms of simple matrices d for the reduction of the Kronecker (outer) product of two or more irreducible representations which can be characterized by Young patterns. These are then used to obtain practical formulas for branching rules. The needed matrices d can be constructed by a very efficient recursive process.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69691/2/JMAPAQ-19-3-720-1.pd

Maternal antibodies from mothers of children with autism alter brain growth and social behavior development in the rhesus monkey.

Antibodies directed against fetal brain proteins of 37 and 73 kDa molecular weight are found in approximately 12% of mothers who have children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but not in mothers of typically developing children. This finding has raised the possibility that these immunoglobulin G (IgG) class antibodies cross the placenta during pregnancy and impact brain development, leading to one form of ASD. We evaluated the pathogenic potential of these antibodies by using a nonhuman primate model. IgG was isolated from mothers of children with ASD (IgG-ASD) and of typically developing children (IgG-CON). The purified IgG was administered to two groups of female rhesus monkeys (IgG-ASD; n=8 and IgG-CON; n=8) during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. Another control group of pregnant monkeys (n=8) was untreated. Brain and behavioral development of the offspring were assessed for 2 years. Behavioral differences were first detected when the macaque mothers responded to their IgG-ASD offspring with heightened protectiveness during early development. As they matured, IgG-ASD offspring consistently deviated from species-typical social norms by more frequently approaching familiar peers. The increased approach was not reciprocated and did not lead to sustained social interactions. Even more striking, IgG-ASD offspring displayed inappropriate approach behavior to unfamiliar peers, clearly deviating from normal macaque social behavior. Longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging analyses revealed that male IgG-ASD offspring had enlarged brain volume compared with controls. White matter volume increases appeared to be driving the brain differences in the IgG-ASD offspring and these differences were most pronounced in the frontal lobes

Reduced SU(3) CFP's

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25008/1/0000435.pd

II. Reduced SU(3) matrix elements

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25012/1/0000439.pd

Reduced SU(3) CFP's

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22637/1/0000188.pd

New outcomes of Lewis base addition to diboranes(4): electronic effects override strong steric disincentives

Two surprising new outcomes of the reaction of Lewis bases with dihalodiboranes(4) are presented, including sp2–sp3 diboranes in which the Lewis base unit is bound to a highly sterically congested boron atom, and a rearranged double base adduct. The results provide a fuller understanding of the reactivity of diboranes, a poorly-understood class of molecule of critical importance to synthetic organic chemistry

An SU(3) model for octet baryon and meson fragmentation

The production of the octet of baryons and mesons in e^+ e^- collisions is analysed, based on considerations of SU(3) symmetry and a simple model for SU(3) symmetry breaking in fragmentation functions. All fragmentation functions, D_q^h(x, Q^2), describing the fragmentation of quarks into a member of the baryon octet (and similarly for fragmentation into members of the meson octet) are expressed in terms of three SU(3) symmetric functions, \alpha(x, Q^2), \beta(x, Q^2), and \gamma(x, Q^2). With the introduction of an SU(3) breaking parameter, \lambda, the model is successful in describing hadroproduction data at the Z pole. The fragmentation functions are then evolved using leading order evolution equations and good fits to currently available data at 34 GeV and at 161 GeV are obtained.Comment: 24 pages LaTeX file including 11 postscript figure file