It Had to Be You Performance at NYCEMF 2014:for Clarinet and Computer

Concert 15: 3:30-5:30 PM: Playhouse

Danny Saul, Glitches/Trajectories
Ethan Greene, Lissajous
Kyong Mee Choi, Ceaseless Cease
Thomas Beverly, Ocotillo

intermission

Paul Wilson, It Had to be You
Kwangrae Kim, Sound Drawing
Steven Kemper, Mythical Spaces
David Durant, FAJI

Can Safe Clinical Thinking be Taught?

OBJECTIVES: To determine if: (a) safe clinical decision making can be taught to undergraduate final year medical students and (b) if such students can be taught to specifically recognise illness severity from nominal clinical data. 
METHODS: 115 final year undergraduate medical students completed a 3 hour interactive Safe Thinking Workshop which focussed entirely on nontechnical skills such as potential perceptive pitfalls, attention to detail, teamwork and safe clinical decision making. The study involved students inspecting and interpreting a set of arterial blood gas results relating to a patient with acute respiratory distress, then answering a short questionnaire addressing biochemical diagnosis, clinical diagnosis and effective management. A separate question was embedded in the questionnaire to determine if astute students could determine the severity of the illness from the CO2 value provided. The study group (n = 58) completed the questionnaire immediately after the Safe Thinking Workshop, whilst the control group (n = 57) completed the questionnaire prior to the Workshop.
RESULTS: The mean total score for study students was 80.51%, with a mean total score of 63.86% for the control group (Student’s t-test; p<0.05). Correct classification of illness severity was observed in 10.35% of study students, compared with 3.51% of control students (p<0.05). 
CONCLUSION: These results suggest that safe clinical decision making and recognition of illness severity can be fostered by specific teaching in the nontechnical skill areas described above.

To be inside someone else's dream: On Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds

Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds (2011-2012) is a new,overnight work in which four performers fall asleep while wearing custom designed EEG sensors which monitor their brainwave activity. The data gathered from the EEG sensors is applied in real time to different audio and image signal processing functions, resulting in continuously evolving multichannel sound environment and visual projection. This material serves as an audiovisual description of the individual and collective neuro physiological state of the ensemble. Audiences are invited to experience the work in different states of attention: while alert and asleep, resting and awakening.

Should scientific realists be platonists?

Enhanced Indispensability Arguments (EIA) claim that Scientific Realists are committed to the existence of mathematical entities due to their reliance on Inference to the Best Explana- tion (IBE). Our central question concerns this purported parity of reasoning: do people who defend the EIA make an appropriate use of the resources of Scientific Realism (in particular, IBE) to achieve platonism? (§2) We argue that just because a variety of different inferential strategies can be employed by Scientific Realists does not mean that ontological conclusions concerning which things we should be Scientific Realists about are arrived at by any inferen- tial route which eschews causes (§3), and nor is there any direct pressure for Scientific Real- ists to change their inferential methods (§4). We suggest that in order to maintain inferential parity with Scientific Realism, proponents of EIA need to give details about how and in what way the presence of mathematical entities directly contribute to explanations (§5).

Variables to be considered when assessing the photocatalytic destruction of bacterial pathogens

The current study sought to assess the importance of three common variables on the outcome of TiO₂ photocatalysis experiments with bacteria. Factors considered were (a) ability of test species to withstand osmotic pressure, (b) incubation period of agar plates used for colony counts following photocatalysis and (c) chemical nature of suspension medium used for bacteria and TiO₂. Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella ser. Typhimurium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were found to vary greatly in their ability to withstand osmotic pressure, raising the possibility that osmotic lysis may be contributing to loss of viability in some photocatalytic disinfection studies. Agar plate incubation time was also found to influence results, as bacteria treated with UV light only grew more slowly than those treated with a combination of UV and TiO_2. The chemical nature of the suspension medium used was found to have a particularly pronounced effect upon results. Greatest antibacterial activity was detected when aqueous sodium chloride solution was utilised, with ∼1 × 10⁶ CFU mL^-1 S. aureus being completely killed after 60 min. Moderate activity was observed when distilled water was employed with bacteria being killed after 2 h and 30 min, and no antibacterial activity at all was detected when aqueous tryptone solution was used. Interestingly, the antibacterial activity of UV light on its own appeared to be very much reduced in experiments where aqueous sodium chloride was employed instead of distilled water.