The contributions of Thomas Alva Edison to music education

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston UniversityWith the invention of the phonograph in 1877, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) ushered in a new era of musical experiences. Among other things, his device provided new learning opportunities for both amateur and professional musicians, in addition to non-musicians. By 1906, Edison recordings were being made for the Siegel-Myers Correspondence School of Music's distance instruction program, five years before Edison's major competitor, the Victor Talking Machine Company, established its education department under the direction of Frances Elliott Clark (1860-1958). The major difference between the competitors' devices was that the Edison phonograph allowed users to record music and the Victor talking machine did not. Despite this disadvantage, the Victor device was marketed more successfully as an aid to music education. Although Edison's phonograph companies encouraged music education through student performance, self-recording, and correspondence feedback, in 1921 Thomas A. Edison, Inc. hired Charles H. Farnsworth (1859-1947) to, in part, replicate Victor's successful approach to music education: learning to appreciate music through listening to recorded music. While Edison and his phonograph have received considerable attention in some scholarly literature, there has been no significant research on his or his companies' involvement with music education. The purpose of this study was to help fill this gap in the literature. Toward that end, the following research questions were addressed: (1) In what ways did Thomas A. Edison contribute to music education? (2) In what ways did Edison's phonograph companies contribute to music education? (3) How, and to whom, did Edison's phonograph companies market their phonographs and other music education products? and (4) How did Edison's approach to music instruction via the phonograph differ from that of Frances Elliott Clark and the Victor Talking Machine Company? Historical research techniques were used in this study, beginning with an examination of documents at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey, the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Historical Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Music Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. These archives contain primary source material about Edison, Clark, and the Edison and Victor phonograph companies

Overbite Correction and Smile Esthetics

The purpose of this prospective clinical study was to investigate differences in outcomes from two common treatment modalities used to reduce deep overbite: maxillary incisor intrusion using an intrusion arch and posterior tooth eruption using an anterior bite plate. Pre-treatment, post-overbite correction and post-treatment records were gathered from 32 patients who presented with deep overbite malocclusions to the Virginia Commonwealth University orthodontic clinic. Both groups of patients experienced reductions in overbite and maxillary incisor display as well as maxillary and mandibular incisor proclination and mandibular incisor occlusal movement during treatment. In the intrusion arch group, the center of resistance of the maxillary incisor was significantly intruded during overbite correction. The maxillary incisor incisal edge was significantly more intruded at the end of treatment in the intrusion arch group. Both groups experienced flattening of the smile arc in agreement with previous studies showing similar changes in orthodontically treated individuals

Understanding the Concept of Formality in Quality Risk Management

Formality in Quality Risk Management (QRM) is an interesting concept. What makes a QRM activity ‘formal’ and what makes one ‘informal’? A simplistic viewpoint might be that formal is when a QRM tool is used to manage risks, and informal is when no such tool is used. But is it that simple? And are there different degrees of formality in QRM - is it a spectrum, or is it a binary concept? These questions are explored in this paper. Since the introduction of ICH Q9 in 2005, there have been discussions in the pharmaceutical industry and between regulators regarding the concept of formality in QRM. ICH Q9 presents two principles of Quality Risk Management, and one of those refers to formality – it states that “the level of effort, formality and documentation of the quality risk management process should be commensurate with the level of risk”. What formality in QRM means at a practical level is currently not clear. A lack of understanding of this concept has probably led to certain negative consequences – ranging from a lack of scientific rigour being applied during certain complex risk assessments, to the overuse of quite resource intensive and highly formalized QRM activities to address relatively straight forward GMP problems and risk questions. In response to this lack of clarity, regulators and industry representatives initiated work to explore the concept of formality in QRM, with a view to achieving a shared understanding as to what it means at a practical level. It was of interest that there was strong support expressed among industry and GMP inspectors for the use of less formal approaches to QRM. The primary outcome of that work is a set of suggested definitions for formal and less formal approaches to QRM. There are several anticipated benefits to this work – including that a better understanding of formality may lead to resources for QRM being used more efficiently – where lower risk issues are dealt with via less formal means, freeing up resources for managing higher risk issues and more complex problems, which usually require increased levels of rigour and effort

Genome Sequence of Geobacillus stearothermophilus DSM 458, an Antimicrobial-Producing Thermophilic Bacterium, Isolated from a Sugar Beet Factory

peer-reviewedThis paper reports the full genome sequence of the antimicrobial-producing bacterium Geobacillus stearothermophilus DSM 458, isolated in a sugar beet factory in Austria. In silico analysis reveals the presence of a number of novel bacteriocin biosynthetic genes

Universal generation of devil's staircases near Hopf bifurcations via modulated forcing of nonlinear systems

The discrete circle map is the archetypical example of a driven periodic system, showing a complex resonance structure under a change of the forcing frequency known as the devil's staircase. Adler's equation can be seen as the direct continuous equivalent of the circle map, describing locking effects in periodic systems with continuous forcing. This type of locking produces a single fundamental resonance tongue without higher-order resonances, and a devil's staircase is not observed. We show that, with harmonically modulated forcing, nonlinear oscillations close to a Hopf bifurcation generically reproduce the devil's staircase even in the continuous case. Experimental results on a semiconductor laser driven by a modulated optical signal show excellent agreement with our theoretical predictions. The locking appears as a modulation of the oscillation amplitude as well as the angular oscillation frequency. Our results show that by proper implementation of an external drive, additional regions of stable frequency locking can be introduced in systems which originally show only a single Adler-type resonance tongue. The induced resonances can be precisely controlled via the modulation parameters

ProSight PTM 2.0: improved protein identification and characterization for top down mass spectrometry

ProSight PTM 2.0 (http://prosightptm2.scs.uiuc.edu) is the next generation of the ProSight PTM web-based system for the identification and characterization of proteins using top down tandem mass spectrometry. It introduces an entirely new data-driven interface, integrated Sequence Gazer for protein characterization, support for fixed modifications, terminal modifications and improved support for multiple precursor ions (multiplexing). Furthermore, it supports data import and export for local analysis and collaboration

Edge-Coupling of O-Band InP Etched-Facet Lasers to Polymer Waveguides on SOI by Micro-Transfer-Printing

O-band InP etched facets lasers were heterogeneously integrated by micro-transfer-printing into a 1.54~\mu \text{m} deep recess created in the 3~\mu \text{m} thick oxide layer of a 220 nm SOI wafer. A 7\times 1.5\,\,\mu \text{m}^{2} cross-section, 2 mm long multimode polymer waveguide was aligned to the ridge post-integration by e-beam lithography with \u3c 0.7~\mu \text{m} lateral misalignment and incorporated a tapered silicon waveguide. A 170 nm thick metal layer positioned at the bottom of the recess adjusts the vertical alignment of the laser and serves as a thermal via to sink the heat to the Si substrate. This strategy shows a roadmap for active polymer waveguide-based photonic integrated circuits