bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Timbre Reliance in Nonmusicians' and Musicians' Memory for Melodies
Authors: Radvansky Gabriel A. , Fleming Kevin J. , Simmons Julie A.
Published: September 2012

This paper reports two experiments that test WolpertV (1990) claim that musicians and nonmusicians differ in their memory for melodies because nonmusicians' memory performance reflects a greater use of the timbre dimension to make recognition decisions. In both experiments, listeners were asked to identify which of two test melodies, a target and a distractor, was heard previously. On one half of the trials, the target melody was in the same timbre as the original, and the distractor was in a different timbre. For the other half of the trials, the distractor melody was in the same timbre as the original, and the target melody was in a different timbre. In her earlier study, Wolpert found that nonmusicians' memory for melodies was affected by timbre changes, whereas musicians' memory was not. In the present experiments, we controlled for instruction clarity and brought listener performance down from near perfect. As a result, it was found that timbre changes differentially affected neither musicians' nor nonmusicians' memory for melodies.
An Experimental Study of Internal Interval Standards in Javanese and Western Musicians
Authors: Perlman Marc , Krumhansl Carol L.
Published: September 2012

Six Javanese and six Western musicians performed a magnitude-estimation task using 36 melodic intervals ranging from 60 to 760 cents at 20-cent increments. Several musicians displayed well-defined regions of confusion in which a range of intervals was assigned approximately equal magnitude estimates. The results suggest that these listeners assimilate the intervals to a set of internal interval standards. No evidence for assimilation was found for other musicians in both groups, some of whom made highly accurate estimates. For the Javanese musicians who showed assimilation to internal interval standards, the regions corresponded to the two Javanese tuning systems, slendro and pelog. For the Western musicians, the regions corresponded to the equal-tempered scale. The relatively wider regions of confusion for the Javanese musicians may reflect the greater variability of intonation in Java. In addition, the Javanese musicians seemed able to choose between internal interval standards based on the two tuning systems.
Musical Schemata in Real-Time Listening to a Piece of Music
Authors: Deliège Iréne , Mélen Marc , Stammers Diana , Cross Ian
Published: September 2012

A series of experiments investigated cognitive processes involved in listening to a piece of music, focusing in particular on the abstraction of surface features (here referred to as cues). Subjects listened to an unfamiliar piece in a familiar musical idiom, and their sensitivities to aspects of the just-heard piece were used to elucidate the nature of their representations of the piece in recent memory. The study also sought to assess the capacities of subjects to use any declarative knowledge of aspects of tonal structure that they possessed in organizing musical material. Three experiments made use of different procedures to address these issues, using either a single short tonal piece—Schubert's Valse sentimentale, D. 779, op. 50, no. 6—or a variant of this. The first two experiments used nonmusician subjects and examined (1) the cues abstracted in listening to the piece and (2) subjects' ability to identify the temporal location of segments of the piece after listening. The third experiment explored the constructional abilities of musician and nonmusician subjects, requiring them to create a coherent piece by ordering the segments that made up the original piece. The results of these experiments indicated that although the abilities of musicians differed from those of nonmusicians, both groups of subjects exhibited a weaker sensitivity to features of musical structure than to cues abstracted from the musical surface.
The Art of Inaccuracy: Why Pianists' Errors Are Difficult to Hear
Authors: Repp Bruno H.
Published: September 2012

Pianists' pitch errors were identified in a MIDI data base comprising more than 90,000 notes. Ten graduate student pianists had played four pieces (Schumann's Träumerei, Debussy's La fille aux cheveux de lin, Chopin's Prelude in D-flat Major, and Grieg's Erotik) three times from the score, after only a brief rehearsal. Pitch errors were classified exhaustively as substitutions, omissions, or intrusions. (A frequent form of intrusion was the "untying" of tied notes.) Nearly all errors occurred in nonmelody voices, often inside chords. The majority of the intrusions and nearly all substitutions seemed contextually appropriate. The repeated performances made it possible to distinguish consistent from unique errors. Consistent errors were more often omissions than intrusions, and consistent intrusions were more contextually appropriate than unique intrusions. Most errors seemed likely to be perceptually inconspicuous. This was confirmed in an error-detection experiment, in which eight pianists, some of whom had recently studied the test piece (the Chopin prelude), collectively detected only 38% of all objectively registered errors. Pitch errors, rather than being a categorical phenomenon (as a scorebased analysis might suggest), vary in the degree to which they violate the music, and their perceptibility is context-, listener-, and situation dependent. Members of a typical concert audience are likely to notice only a small fraction of a pianist's inaccuracies, which is in part due to the contextual appropriateness of most errors.
The Place of Musical Novices in Music Science
Authors: Smith J. David
Published: September 2012

Music science typically and naturally focuses on experts' perceptual, cognitive, and aesthetic responses to music. Novices receive far less empirical and theoretical attention. This asymmetry could eventually constrain or limit the discipline. To illustrate this point, existing data are used to compare the performance of experts and novices in a variety of music paradigms. Experts are sensitive to music's tonal materials (e.g., octaves, intervals) and their listening preferences and evaluative standards reflect this sensitivity. In contrast, novices are often less sensitive to music's tonal materials, and their listening preferences and evaluative standards reflect this insensitivity. A music science that included novices more fully would be more comprehensive and better prepared to address basic questions about music's evolution and its universal structure.
An Ergonomic Model of Keyboard Fingering for Melodic Fragments
Authors: Parncutt Richard , Sloboda John A. , Clarke Eric F. , Raekallio Matti , Desain Peter
Published: September 2012

The fingerings used by keyboard players are determined by a range of ergonomic (anatomic/motor), cognitive, and music-interpretive constraints. We have attempted to encapsulate the most important ergonomic constraints in a model. The model, which is presently limited to isolated melodic fragments, begins by generating all possible fingerings, limited only by maximum practical spans between finger pairs. Many of the fingerings generated in this way seldom occur in piano performance. In the next stage of the model, the difficulty of each fingering is estimated according to a system of rules. Each rule represents a specific ergonomic source of difficulty. The model was subjected to a preliminary test by comparing its output with fingerings written by pianists on the scores of a selection of short Czerny studies. Most fingerings recommended by pianists were among those fingerings predicted by the model to be least difficult; but the model also predicted numerous fingerings that were not recommended by pianists. A variety of suggestions for improving the predictive power of the model are explored.
The Aesthetic Quality of a Quantitatively Average Music Performance: Two Preliminary Experiments
Authors: Repp Bruno H.
Published: September 2012

A statistically average or prototypical member of a category (e.g., human faces) is often perceived as more attractive than less typical category members. Two experiments explored to what extent this may hold for music performance, an artistic domain in which individuality (i.e., deviation from prototypicality) is highly valued. In Experiment 1, graduate student pianists judged 11 student performances of Schumann's "Traumerei," one of which was created by forming the mathematical average of the other 10. The average performance was rated second highest in quality, even though it was judged second lowest in individuality. In Experiment 2, pianists judged 30 performances of the beginning of Chopin's Etude in E major, synthesized so as to vary only in expressive timing and tempo. The timing patterns were derived from expert pianists' recordings and from casual student performances, and they included separate and combined averages. All three averages received high quality ratings, and the expert average was rated highest of all 30 performances. There was a negative linear correlation between rated quality and individuality. Paradoxically, therefore, the students' expressive timing patterns were preferred over the experts'. Possible explanations of this finding are discussed, such as interactions between timing and other performance parameters and conditions under which conventionality tends to be favored over individuality.
The Processing of Discontinuous Dependencies in Language and Music
Authors: Swinney David , Love Tracy
Published: September 2012

This article examines the nature and time course of the processing of discontinuous dependency relationships in language and draws suggestive parallels to similar issues in music perception. The on-line language comprehension data presented demonstrate that discontinuous structural dependencies cause reactivation of the misordered or "stranded" sentential material at its underlying canonical position in the sentence during ongoing comprehension. Further, this process is demonstrated to be driven by structural knowledge, independent of pragmatic information, aided by prosodic cues, and dependent on rate of input. Issues of methodology and of theory that are equally relevant to language and music are detailed.
Affective and Coherence Responses to Russian Laments
Authors: Meyer Rosalee K. , Palmer Caroline , Mazo Margarita
Published: September 2012

We investigated the effects of formal characteristics (musical phrase structure) and nonverbal vocal gestures (gasps characteristic of crying) on affective and coherence responses to Russian laments by listeners who were familiar or unfamiliar with Russian village music. Laments were presented in semantically compatible or incompatible phrase orders with gasps present or absent. Listeners rated laments on an affective response scale (sad/happy) and a musical coherence scale (phrases follow well/phrases follow poorly). All listeners judged laments as sadder when gasps were present than absent, but effects of phrase order on affective responses were dependent on listeners' musical background. Listeners familiar with Russian laments judged all excerpts as coherent, but listeners unfamiliar with laments judged the excerpts as less coherent when gasps were present than absent. Listeners' emotional and cognitive responses to music were affected by both culture-transcendent factors (gasps characteristic of crying) and culture-specific factors (phrase structure).
Categorical Rhythm Perception as a Result of Unilateral Assimilation in Time-Shrinking
Authors: Sasaki Takayuki , Nakajima Yoshitaka , Hoopen Gert Ten
Published: September 2012

In previous studies, we established an illusion of time perception that we called time-shrinking: an empty time interval, immediately preceded by a slightly shorter time interval, is underestimated. In the first experiment of the present study, we examined the perceived duration not only of the second interval (t2), but also of the first interval (tl). The empty time intervals tl and t2, making a total duration of 90,180, 360, or 720 ms, were presented such that the time ratio between them changed systematically. The points of subjective equality of tl and t2 were established by the method of adjustment. In the patterns typically susceptible to timeshrinking, that is, in which t2 was underestimated, tl was perceived almost vertically. In the second experiment, listeners had to bisect an empty duration of 180 ms, marked by sound bursts. The bisecting sound marker was positioned closer to the initial marker than to the final one. Thus, tl had to be shorter than t2 in order for a regular pattern to be perceived. In the third experiment, just-noticeable forward and backward displacements of the middle sound marker were measured by a transformed updown method. The prediction that the interval of uncertainty was closer to the initial than to the final sound marker was confirmed. The three experiments demonstrated the existence of unilateral temporal assimilation, and it is argued that this perceptual mechanism causes a category of 1:1 rhythms, despite a considerable change in temporal ratio between two contiguous time intervals.
Timbre Similarity: Convergence of Neural, Behavioral, and Computational Approaches
Authors: Toiviainen Petri , Tervaniemi Mari , Louhivuori Jukka , Saher Marieke , Huotilainen Minna , Näätänen Risto
Published: September 2012

The present study compared the degree of similarity of timbre representations as observed with brain recordings, behavioral studies, and computer simulations. To this end, the electrical brain activity of subjects was recorded while they were repetitively presented with five sounds differing in timbre. Subjects read simultaneously so that their attention was not focused on the sounds. The brain activity was quantified in terms of a change-specific mismatch negativity component. Thereafter, the subjects were asked to judge the similarity of all pairs along a five-step scale. A computer simulation was made by first training a Kohonen self-organizing map with a large set of instrumental sounds. The map was then tested with the experimental stimuli, and the distance between the most active artificial neurons was measured. The results of these methods were highly similar, suggesting that timbre representations reflected in behavioral measures correspond to neural activity, both as measured directly and as simulated in self-organizing neural network models.
Effects of Auditory Feedback Deprivation on Expressive Piano Performance
Authors: Repp Bruno H.
Published: September 2012

Previous studies have suggested that elimination of auditory feedback has no significant effect on the accuracy of keyboard performance. In the present study, this issue was investigated further by focusing specifically on parameters of expression in piano performance: horizontal and vertical timing, horizontal and vertical dynamics, and pedaling. Six pianists performed a short musical excerpt (bars 1-5 of Chopin's Etude in E Major, op. 10, no. 3) 10 times on a digital piano in each of four conditions: expressive with and without feedback, and metronomic with and without feedback. The data analyses revealed significant effects of feedback deprivation on all expressive parameters in both expressive and metronomic performance. However, these effects were very small, except for some substantial changes in pedaling by some pianists. To determine the perceptual and aesthetic significance of these effects, a group of pianist listeners was presented with a forced- choice test in which expressive performances produced with and without feedback were paired with each other. The listeners correctly identified the performance played without feedback on only 63.5% of the trials, which confirms the relative subtlety of the effects of feedback deprivation. Although expression seems to be controlled primarily by an internal representation of the music, auditory feedback may be important in fine-tuning a performance and in the control of pedaling. However, it is also possible that the effects of auditory feedback deprivation merely reflect a lack of motivation to play expressively in the absence of sound.
A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues
Authors: Balkwill Laura-Lee , Thompson William Forde
Published: September 2012

Studies of the link between music and emotion have primarily focused on listeners' sensitivity to emotion in the music of their own culture. This sensitivity may reflect listeners' enculturation to the conventions of their culture's tonal system. However, it may also reflect responses to psychophysical dimensions of sound that are independent of musical experience. A model of listeners' perception of emotion in music is proposed in which emotion in music is communicated through a combination of universal and cultural cues. Listeners may rely on either of these cues, or both, to arrive at an understanding of musically expressed emotion. The current study addressed the hypotheses derived from this model using a cross-cultural approach. The following questions were investigated: Can people identify the intended emotion in music from an unfamiliar tonal system? If they can, is their sensitivity to intended emotions associated with perceived changes in psychophysical dimensions of music? Thirty Western listeners rated the degree of joy, sadness, anger, and peace in 12 Hindustani raga excerpts (field recordings obtained in North India). In accordance with the raga-rasa system, each excerpt was intended to convey one of the four moods or "rasas" that corresponded to the four emotions rated by listeners. Listeners also provided ratings of four psychophysical variables: tempo, rhythmic complexity, melodic complexity, and pitch range. Listeners were sensitive to the intended emotion in ragas when that emotion was joy, sadness, or anger. Judgments of emotion were significantly related to judgments of psychophysical dimensions, and, in some cases, to instrument timbre. The findings suggest that listeners are sensitive to musically expressed emotion in an unfamiliar tonal system, and that this sensitivity is facilitated by psychophysical cues.
Real and Simulated Expression: A Listening Study
Authors: Clarke Eric F. , Windsor W. Luke
Published: September 2012

A number of attempts have been made in the past 10 to 15 years to construct artificial systems that can simulate human expressive performance, but few systematic studies of the relationship between model output and comparable human performances have been undertaken. In this study, we assessed listeners' responses to real and artificially generated performances. Subjects were asked to identify and evaluate performances of two differently notated editions of two pieces, played by a panel of experienced pianists and by an artificial performer. The results suggest that expressive timing and dynamics do not relate to one another in the simple manner that is implemented in the model (Todd, 1992) used here, that small objective differences in the expressive profiles of different performances can lead to distinctly different judgments by listeners, and that what appears to be the same expressive feature in performance can fulfill different functions. Although one purpose of such a study is to assess the model on which it is based, more important is its demonstration of the general value of comparing human data with a model. As is often the case, it is what the model does not explain that is most interesting.
Development of Tonality Induction: Plasticity, Exposure, and Training
Authors: Cohen Annabel J.
Published: September 2012

Tonality induction is the natural outcome of acoustic redundancies in music and the predisposition of the brain to represent these redundancies. In the simplest case, tonality induction relies on frequency resolution and a memory accumulator. A review of the literature suggests that these and other more sophisticated building blocks (analysis of complex tones and sensitivity to sequential characteristics of musical patterns) are in place to contribute to tonality induction in the first year of life. As further revealed by life-span studies of preference and recognition for stylistically different popular music excerpts, two other constraints must also be considered: (1) brain plasticity and (2) degree of exposure to music of particular styles. The importance of a final factor, (3) formal music performance training, is shown in studies of (a) the benefits of the major triad frequency ratio relations (4: 5: 6) on memory (absolute judgment) for tones in an unfamiliar context (b) the applicability of a model based on a key-finding algorithm to pitch memory in a tonal context, and (c) the probe-tone task.
Choral Singing, Performance Perception, and Immune System Changes in Salivary Immunoglobulin A and Cortisol
Authors: Beck R. J. , Cesario T. C. , Yousefi A. , Enamoto H.
Published: September 2012

In a naturalistic pre-post design, samples of saliva were collected from the members of a professional chorale during an early rehearsal (n = 31), a late rehearsal (n = 34) and a public performance (n = 32) of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. As measures of immune system response, mean levels of secretory immunoglobulin A increased significantly, as a proportion of whole protein, 150% during rehearsals and 240% during the performance. Cortisol concentrations decreased significantly an average of 30% during rehearsals and increased 37% during performance. As measured through performance perception rating scales, a group of emotions and other experiential states that singers associated with professional singing were highly predictive of changes in level of secretory immunoglobulin A during the performance condition, but the results for the rehearsal conditions were not significant. The best multiple regression model for performance level of immunoglobulin A (p < .0015) included seven emotional, cognitive, and evaluative variables generally associated with choral singing, including levels of mood before and during singing, stress, relaxation, feeling "high," detachment/engagement, and specific satisfaction with the immediate performance.
Attention to Key in a Nondirected Music Listening Task: Musicians vs. Nonmusicians
Authors: Wolpert Rita S.
Published: September 2012

This study questions the assumption that a majority of nonmusicians pay attention to key when not specifically directed to do so. The question asked was "what do people hear," rather than "what can people hear." Musicians and nonmusicians listened to a song sung in a different key from its accompaniment. There were no other differences in the music stimuli. Subjects were asked what differences, if any, they heard. In other words, left to their own devices would listeners pay attention to and report the bitonality of the excerpt? Although 100% of the musicians heard the clash of keys, only 40% of the nonmusicians indicated that they heard the difference in keys between singer and accompaniment. Of these, half also mentioned nonexistent differences, for example, in instrumentation, dynamics, and tempo.
Effects of the Preceding Scale on Melodic Interval Judgment in Terms of Equality and Size
Authors: Tsuzaki Minoru
Published: September 2012

In an investigation of interactions between scales and intervals in music cognition, melodic intervals were judged in three preceding-scale contexts: diatonic, chromatic, and no scale. Musically less trained and highly trained subjects compared standard and comparison intervals using three response categories: smaller, equal, and larger. Standard intervals began with notes B or C and ascended by 100, 150, or 200 cents. Discriminal dispersion was estimated for each combination of standard and comparison intervals, based on the assumption that the bandwidth of subjective equality was constant. The dispersion width and the modal dispersion corresponded to the equality- related and sizerelated aspects of interval judgments, respectively. The size-related aspect was strongly influenced by the size of the standard intervals. The point of balance, which corresponds to the traditional point of subjective equality (PSE), tended to be smaller as the standard interval became larger. It was, however, anchored to the point of musical equality when the standard interval began with the tonic. The equality-related aspect was influenced by the relationship between the preceding scale and the intervals to be judged. The diatonic preceding scale differentiated the intervals by their positions along the scale, that is, a sharp discriminal dispersion was estimated when the judged intervals were congruent with the diatonic scale. Such differentiation was not clearly observed in the chromatic condition. The relationship between these two aspects of interval judgment and the subject's musical ability is discussed.
A Perceptual Analysis of Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 282: Segmentation, Tension, and Musical Ideas
Authors: Krumhansl Carol L.
Published: September 2012

The experiments reported here provide a perceptual analysis of the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in Eb Major, K. 282. The listeners, who varied in the extent of their musical training, performed three tasks while listening to the piece as it was reproduced from an expert performance. The first task determined how the music is perceived to be segmented, the second task determined how the experience of tension varies over time, and the third task determined what listeners identify as new musical ideas in the piece. These tasks were performed first on the entire piece and then on smaller sections from the beginning. These three aspects of music perception are coordinated with one another and correlate with various musical attributes. Judgments of section ends co- occurred with peaks in tension and slow tempos. Judgments of new musical ideas co- occurred with low tension levels and neutral tempos. Tension was influenced by melodic contour, note density, dynamics, harmony, tonality, and other factors. Judgments of large-scale section ends were less frequent than judgments of new musical ideas, but these were more nearly one-to-one on smaller time scales. A subsidiary experiment examined the extent to which tension judgments were influenced by performed tempo and dynamics. Listeners made tension judgments for four different versions of the piece: as performed, constant dynamics (with tempo as performed), constant tempo (with dynamics as performed), and constant tempo and dynamics. The tension curves were generally very similar, deviating only in a few regions containing major section ends. The results are considered in light of the metaphor of tension applied to music and the analogy between music and linguistic discourse.
Drawing Inferences from Symphonic Programs: Musical Attributes versus Listener Attributions
Authors: Simonton Dean Keith
Published: September 2012

In classical music listening, program announcements both on radio and in concerts will usually introduce the performance of a symphony with the same minimal articles of information, such as the composer, the order of composition, the key, and the name, if any. But how much can a listener infer about the musical attributes of the work from these basic facts? Examination of 99 symphonies by 13 symphonists between Beethoven and Shostakovich showed that such rudimentary programmatic data can predict several subjective and objective features, including aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, repertoire popularity, melodic originality, originality variation, and playing time. Discussion follows about what these empirical relationships may imply about how composers create their symphonies and how appreciators perceive those musical products.
Timing in Estonian Folk Songs as Interaction between Speech Prosody, Meter, and Musical Rhythm
Authors: Ross Jaan , Lehiste Ilse
Published: September 2012

Durations of acoustical segments were measured in four Estonian folk songs sung by a single performer, consisting of 152 verse lines, eight syllables each, with one note in the melody normally corresponding to one syllable in the text. The results were analyzed with regard to three aspects: notation, meter, and speech prosody. Three songs out of four are notated as isochronous sequences of 8 eighth notes per each verse line; in one song, certain pairs of eighth notes are replaced by a dotted eighth note plus a sixteenth note. The results revealed a complex interaction between meter, musical rhythm, and speech prosody. Variations in durations of sound events reflect the Kalevala meter on which the songs are based, with average rises in a foot being acoustically longer than falls. The duration differences between rises and falls are reduced in the socalled broken lines, which contain monosyllabic and trisyllabic words and allow for accommodation of short stressed syllables at a fall of a foot as required by the meter. Semantically relevant oppositions of wordinitial short-long and long-short disyllabic units in speech are not kept completely intact in folk songs. Short-long disyllables are treated in a different manner by the performer, depending on whether their initial syllable occurs at a rise or at a fall in a foot.
Ethnicity and Politics in Rural Mexico: Land Invasions in Huejutla
Authors: Schryer Franz Jozef
Published: September 2012

En este ensayo analizaré los estudios sobre las minorías indígenas en las regiones rurales de México y los conflictos agrarios que ocurrieron en el distrito de Huejutla.
From Destouches to Berton: Editorial Responsibility at the Paris Opéra
Authors: Rosow Lois
Published: September 2012

From the death of Lully until the mid-1770s, revivals of old works, edited to conform to contemporary taste, formed a substantial part of the repertory of the Paris Opéra. Examination of the eighteenth-century administrative history of the Opéra shows that the editorial work-modest in scope before 1753 but considerably more extensive after the Guerre des Bouffons -was the responsibility of the inspecteur général from 1713 to 1757 but, as a result of a gradual shift in the administrative structure of the organization, was subsequently carried out by a variety of Opéra officials. The most important editors were André Cardinal Destouches (whose editorial work is evident in a newly-identified musical autograph), François Francoeur, François Rebel, and Pierre Montan Berton.
Charlemagne's Archetype of Gregorian Chant
Authors: Levy Kenneth
Published: September 2012

Argues that the "Gregorian" repertory of Mass propers was fully neumed under Charlemagne, a century sooner than is generally supposed. The chief witness is an "apocryphal" Offertory, Factus est repente for Pentecost. Affected are widely-held views concerning: (1) the origin of neumes; (2) the impact of oral-improvisational techniques on Gregorian chant; and (3) the origin and relationship of Gregorian and Old Roman chant styles.
Crossing over with Rubén Blades
Authors: Randel Don Michael
Published: September 2012

Having won two Grammy Awards, attracted considerable attention in the English-language media, and appeared in several Hollywood films, Latin popular singer Rubén Blades has been much discussed as a crossover, that is, as an artist who, with a well-defined audience (in this case Hispanic), produces work that appeals in addition to another audience (here the audience for mainstream American popular music). El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, in contrast, continues to appeal to its traditional Hispanic audience and remains the undisputed leader in popularity with that audience. A comparison of a piece by El Gran Combo with one by Blades suggests ways of thinking about the relationship of both to their audiences and to each other and ways in which musicology might approach such questions in specifically musical terms. Blades is seen not to be crossing over from one audience to another but to represent transformations in his Hispanic audience, which is itself crossing over to become increasingly imbued with Anglo culture while remaining rooted in its own traditions.
Anti-Protestant Music for Sixteenth-Century Ferrara
Authors: Nugent George
Published: September 2012

This study explores the motivations that lie behind three polyphonic works by musicians active at Ferrara and Mantua in the first half of the sixteenth century: a motet by Maistre Jhan, and a motet and mass by Jacquet. The background that links all three is the intense campaign that was waged between reform and orthodoxy. Music and visual art were sometimes put to use as propaganda. The Este and Gonzaga families who ruled the two states were related by blood and political alliances. They had strong reasons to defend the orthodox religion; they were also deeply persuaded of music's communicative power. Not surprisingly, their court musicians were often called on for music with a political message. The three works chosen here, each in its own way, reflect the religious convictions and personal ambitions of leading members of the two families caught up in crises: duke Ercole II D'Este, uneasy vassal of the pope; his wife Renée de France, habitual protector of religious rebels; and Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, a career diplomat hopeful of wearing the triple crown.
The Newly Discovered Hochenecker Portrait of Beethoven (1819): "Das ähnlichste Bildnis Beethovens"
Authors: Steblin Rita
Published: September 2012

In 1987 the author discovered a pencil-drawing portrait of Beethoven signed "J. Hochenecker" and dated "1819" in an antique shop in Vienna. Scientific analysis of the paper by experts at the Albertina confirms the authenticity of the 1819 date, and the artist Josef Hochenecker (1794-1876) is identified as a sculptor in Anton Redl's address book of 1820. Circumstantial evidence suggests that this was the portrait drawing of Beethoven's face ordered by Nikolaus Zmeskal in the letter "Ich kann weder für das Gluck" which MacArdle and Misch date "fall of 1819." This 1819 portrait, and not Stephan Decker's 1824 chalk drawing, served as the model for Josef Kriehuber's black-tie lithograph of 1832. An anonymous article in the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of 1835, probably written by Tobias Haslinger, argues that the Kriehuber lithograph, and hence the 1819 original, is the best likeness of the composer. This portrait, with its visionary, serene expression, is far removed from the canonic depiction of Beethoven as a glowering, lion-maned titan, and corresponds rather with the deaf, withdrawn genius of the esoteric late works.
Musical Gesture and Extra-Musical Meaning: Words and Music in the Urdu Ghazal
Authors: Qureshi Regula Burckhardt
Published: September 2012

This ethnomusicological inquiry into the text-music relationship assumes a broadly contextual perspective that encompasses, but goes beyond, traditional considerations of textual and musical structures with the aim of exploring the sources of meaning for what Edward Cone terms the "gestural character" of the musical utterance. The approach calls for making explicit the ideational framework as well as the performative function of a vocal genre, both of which inform the way its musical idiom serves to communicate a text in performance. The ghazal, subject of this case study, is the principal poetic form in Urdu; it is set to music in a number of related but distinct genres. Illustrated by a set of transcribed and translated examples, the analytical procedure first considers the text-music structure as a performance idiom that is subject to the cultural-historical background norms of Urdu poetry on the one hand and North Indian "light" music on the other. The second stage considers each particular genre in terms of its idiom's specific function in performance. The general conclusion is that music linked to ghazal poetry is structurally constrained by the text as performed, but that purely musical features articulate, and thus link, the text with the content of its performance. Hence ghazal music represents a synthesis of text and context in its embodiment of features drawn from both and expressed directly through a unique vocabulary of musical gestures.
From Maker to Composer: Improvisation and Musical Authorship in the Low Countries, 1450-1500
Authors: Wegman Rob C.
Published: September 2012

The second half of the fifteenth century saw profound changes in the understanding and valuation of the concepts of "composer" and "composition." This article explores those changes, especially as they evolved in urban musical culture in the Low Countries in 1450-1500. Attention is given to oral traditions of popular and professional polyphony, the status of writing in musical instruction and practice, the emergence of a perceived opposition between "composition" and "improvisation," the technical and conceptual ramifications of that perception, the relative social and professional status implied in designations such as "singer," "composer," "musicus," and "tenorist," and, finally, the new understanding and valuation of musical authorship, around 1500, involving notions of personal style, artistic freedom, authorial intention, creative property, historical awareness, and professional organization, protection, and secrecy.
The "Wechsel der Töne" in Brahms's "Schicksalslied"
Authors: Daverio John
Published: September 2012

The nature of musical meaning in Brahms's Schicksalslied, op. 54, a setting of an interpolated lyric from Friedrich Hölderlin's epistolary novel Hyperion, has long puzzled students of the composer's works. Brahms's apparent contradiction of the message of the poem in an ethereal orchestral postlude is here considered in the light of Hölderlin's own poetic theory of "alternating tones" toward the end of demonstrating the composer's adherence to the spirit, if not the letter, of the poet's work. The Schicksalslied is further interpreted as the last instance of the Erlebnislyrik (lyric of personal experience) within Brahms's output, and hence as a telling prelude to the symphonic essays of the 1870s and 1880s.
La Guerre en dentelles: Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics
Authors: Fauser Annegret
Published: September 2012

In 1903, one hundred years after the Prix de Rome had been created in music composition, women were allowed to participate in the competition for the first time. In 1913, Lili Boulanger became the first woman to win the prize, crowning the efforts of three others-Juliette Toutain, Hélène Fleury, and Nadia Boulanger-to achieve this goal. Their stories are fascinating case studies of the strategies women employed to achieve success and public recognition within the complex framework of French cultural politics at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Approaching the Communion Melodies
Authors: Maiani Brad
Published: September 2012

This study attempts to expose three chronological layers of the communion repertory. I begin by compiling a set of analytical norms for the communions of Lent and the Sundays after Pentecost, which take their texts from the Psalter and are ordered numerically based on their source psalm. The majority of these chants are closely related in style, and their written tradition is quite stable. Those that form exceptions to the norm are assigned to feasts known to have been introduced or adjusted comparatively late in liturgical history, and it is argued here that their unusual musical traits might be taken as evidence for their addition or adaptation at a late stage of the cycle's evolution. A third set of communions is closely allied with these presumably younger psalmic chants. In addition to their curious use as both responsories for matins and communions at Mass, they are largely responsible for the well-known textual, modal, and stylistic heterogeneity of the communion repertory as a whole. The majority of these "responsory-communions" are assigned to the Paschaltide season, which also has recently been cited as the subject of late liturgical revision and expansion. These dual genre chants may well be among the last items added to the Roman plainchant repertory before its official export to the north in the mid-eighth century.
Distalization pattern of the maxillary arch depending on the number of orthodontic miniscrews
Authors: Bechtold Till E. , Kim Jin-Wook , Choi Tae-Hyun , Park Young-Chel , Lee Kee-Joon
Published: September 2012

Objective:

To determine the effects of linear force vector(s) from interradicular miniscrews on the distalization pattern of the maxillary arch in adult Class II patients.

Materials and Methods:

Twenty-five adult patients with mild to moderate Class II dentition and minimal crowding were collected. Either single (group A, n  =  12) or dual (group B, n  =  13) miniscrews were inserted on the posterior interradicular area to deliver a distalizing force to the main archwire. The displacement patterns of maxillary incisors and molars were measured and compared.

Results:

Significant distalization in the molars and incisors was shown in both groups. Significantly greater distalization and intrusion of the first molar and intrusive displacement of the incisor, together with significant reduction of the mandibular plane, were noted in group B, in contrast to the rotation of the occlusal plane in group A.

Conclusions:

Interradicular miniscrews predictably induced total arch distalization, leading to the correction of Class II. Additional miniscrews in the premolar area appear to facilitate intrusion and distalization of the entire arch according to the position of the force vectors.
Study of deoxynivalenol effect on metallothionein and glutathione levels, antioxidant capacity, and glutathione-S-transferase and liver enzymes activity in rats
Authors: Sobrova Pavlina , Vasatkova Anna , Skladanka Jiri , Beklova Miroslava , Zeman Ladislav , Kizek Rene , Adam Vojtech
Published: September 2012

Deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin) is one of several human mycotoxins acquired through residues in foods of plant origin (cereals) and through foods of animal origin (kidneys, liver, milk, eggs). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of deoxynivalenol-contaminated mouldy grain on the health status of rats and their ability to resist oxidative stress. The rats were fed a diet supplemented with DON along with organic and inorganic Zn(II), and vitamins for 28 days. The study focuses particularly on protective mechanisms and levels of reduced glutathione and metallothioneins (MT) against the adverse effects of xenobiotics. The highest concentrations of MT were detected in the tissues of kidneys ((6.70 ± 0.05) μg g−1) and liver ((6.00 ± 0.05) μg g−1), both of which are involved in detoxifying cationic xenobiotics. Lower concentrations were also detected in heart, brain, testes, and muscle tissues (approximately 3.0 μg g−1). Antioxidant capacity, glutathione-S-transferase, and liver enzymes activity were also studied. In conclusion, MT may play an important role in the detoxification of mycotoxins. Even though its role is not fully understood, MT are crucial for the redistribution of ions important for transcription factors and interaction with reactive oxygen species that form mycotoxins.
Fabrication of a micro-direct methanol fuel cell using microfluidics
Authors: Yunphuttha Chumphol , Bunjongpru Win , Porntheeraphat Supanit , Wongchaisuwat Atchana , Hruanun Charndet , Poyai Amporn , Viravathana Pinsuda
Published: September 2012

A direct-methanol fuel cell containing three parts: microchannels, electrodes, and a proton exchange membrane (PEM), was investigated. Nafion resin (NR) and polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene-ran-butylene)-block-polystyrene (PS) were used as PEMs. Preparation of PEMs, including compositing with other polymers and their solubility, was performed and their proton conductivity was measured by a four point probe. The results showed that the 5 % Nafion resin has lower conductivity than the 5 % PS solution. The micro-fuel cell contained two acrylic channels, PEM, and two platinum catalyst electrodes on a silicon wafer. The assembled micro-fuel cells used 2 M methanol at the flow rate of 1.5 mL min−1 in the anode channel and 5 × 10−3 M KMnO4 at the flow rate of 1.5 mL min−1 in the cathode channel. The micro-fuel cell with the electrode distance of 300 μm provided the power density of 59.16 μW cm−2 and the current density of 125.60 μA cm−2 at 0.47 V.
Optimal glucose and inoculum concentrations for production of bioactive molecules by Paenibacillus polymyxa RNC-D
Authors: Serrano Nadja , Rodrigues Ligia , Hokka Carlos , Sousa Cristina , Teixeira José , Mussatto Solange
Published: September 2012

The production of antimicrobial metabolites by Paenibacillus polymyxa RNC-D was assessed. Two process variables, glucose and inoculum concentrations, were evaluated at different levels (5–40 g L−1, and at φ r = 2.5–5.0 %, respectively), and their effects on biomass formation, minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) against Escherichia coli, and surface tension reduction (STR) were studied. When the fermentation process was carried out under non-optimised conditions, the biomass, MIC, and STR achieved the following values: 0.6 g L−1, 1 g L−1, and 18.4 mN m−1, respectively. The optimum glucose (16 g L−1) and inoculum volume ratio (φ r = 5.0 %) were defined in order to maximise the biomass formation, with a low value of MIC and high STR of extract. The experiments carried out under optimal conditions showed the following values for the dependent variables: biomass concentration 2.05 g L−1, MIC 31.2 μg mL−1, and STR 10.7 mN m−1, which represented improvement of 241.7 %, 96.9 %, and 41.9 % for the responses of biomass, MIC, and STR, respectively. This is the first recorded study on the optimisation of culture conditions for the production of antimicrobial metabolites of P. polymyxa RNC-D, and constitutes an important step in the development of strategies to modulate the production of antimicrobial molecules by this microorganism at elevated levels.
Solutions to the direct and inverse navigation problems on the great ellipse
Authors: Sjöberg L. E.
Published: September 2012

The Great Ellipse (GE) is the curve of intersection between the surface and a plane through the center of an ellipsoid. For arcs within a few thousands of kilometres it agrees within a few metres with the geodesic. As the direct and indirect navigation problems for the GE can be solved almost entirely by closed formulas (in contrast to the corresponding geodetic problems of the geodesic), navigation on the GE is mostly preferred. Here we take advantage of the Clairaut constant on the GE in solving the navigation problems.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance as a Diagnostic Tool in Breast Cancer
Authors: Hnilicova P. , Dobrota D.
Published: September 2012

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance as a Diagnostic Tool in Breast Cancer

The early detection and treatment of breast cancer is of direct benefit to patients. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a promising modality for detection, diagnosis, and staging of breast cancer. MRI enables two methods: the diffusion-weighted MRI (DW MRI) and the dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE MRI). DW MRI reflects the diffusion of water molecules in the extracellular fluid space and allows the estimation of cellularity and tissue structure. The value of the diffusion of water in tissue is called the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). ADC values in malignant lesions are smaller than in benign tissue. DCE MRI yields appropriate pharmacokinetic data of physiological parameters that relate to tissue perfusion, microvascular vessel wall permeability and extracellular volume fraction. Gadolinium based contrast agent is usually used in breast DCE MRI diagnostics. Changes in the post-contrast signal intensity help to distinguish lesions according to characteristically enhanced accumulation of contrast agent. Malignant lesions are characterized by a faster and stronger signal enhancement than benign lesions which relate to their neoangiogenesis. Over the last few years, there has been appreciable interest in the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for the non-invasive analysis of breast tisue metabolites. One of the spectroscopic hallmarks of the neoplastic process appears to be the presence of total choline signal in thein vivospectrum. Despite the fact that MRI and MRS achieve excellent results, they are still not so frequently used in comparison to mammography and breast ultrasound.