AMERICAN WOMEN COMPOSERS: SELECTED PUBLISHED WORKS FOR FLUTE AND PIANO AND FOR UNACCOMPANIED FLUTE COMPOSED BETWEEN 1930 AND 2008

The music of women composers often comprises only a small percentage of flutists‘ repertoire, yet there are actually many active women composers, many of whom have written for the flute. The aim of this dissertation is to chronicle a selection of works by several American women composers that have contributed to accessible flute repertoire. For the purpose of this dissertation, accessibility is described by the following parameters: works that limit the use of extended techniques, works that are suitable for performers from high school through a reasonably advanced level, works that are likely to elicit emotionally musical communication from the performer to the listener, and works that are reasonably available through music stores or outlets on the Internet that have a fairly comprehensive reach to the general public. My subjective judgment also played a role in the final selection of the 25 works included as part of this dissertation, and performed on three musically well-balanced recitals. A variety of resources were consulted for the repertoire, including Boenke‘s Flute Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalog, and the catalogs of publishers such as Arsis Press and Hildegard Publishing, both of which specialize in the music of women composers. The works performed and discussed are the following: Adrienne Albert – Sunswept; Marion Bauer – Prelude and Fugue, Op. 43.; Marilyn Bliss – Lament; Ann Callaway – Updraft; Ruth Crawford – Diaphonic Suite; Emma Lou Diemer – Sonata; Vivian Fine – Emily’s Images; Cynthia Folio – Arca Sacra; Nancy Galbraith – Atacama; Lita Grier – Sonata; Jennifer Higdon – The Jeffrey Mode; Edie Hill – This Floating World; Katherine Hoover – Masks; Mary Howe – Interlude between Two Pieces; Laura Kaminsky – Duo; Libby Larsen – Aubade; Alex Shapiro – Shiny Kiss; Judith Shatin – Coursing Through the Still Green; Faye-Ellen Silverman – Taming the Furies; Augusta Read Thomas – Euterpe’s Caprice; Joan Tower – Valentine Trills; Ludmila Ulehla – Capriccio; Elizabeth Vercoe – Kleemation; Gwyneth Walker – Sonata; and Judith Lang Zaimont – ‘Bubble-Up’ Rag. All of these works are worthy alternatives to the more frequently played flute repertoire, and they serve as a good starting point for anyone interested i n exploring the works of women composers.

Dispersal and Integration in Female Chimpanzees

In chimpanzees, most females disperse from the community in which they were born to reproduce in a new community, thereby eliminating the risk of inbreeding with close kin. However, across sites, some females breed in their natal community, raising questions about the flexibility of dispersal, the costs and benefits of different strategies and the mitigation of costs associated with dispersal and integration. In this dissertation I address these questions by combining long-term behavioral data and recent field observations on maturing and young adult females in Gombe National Park with an experimental manipulation of relationship formation in captive apes in the Congo.

To assess the risk of inbreeding for females who do and do not disperse, 129 chimpanzees were genotyped and relatedness between each dyad was calculated. Natal females were more closely related to adult community males than were immigrant females. By examining the parentage of 58 surviving offspring, I found that natal females were not more related to the sires of their offspring than were immigrant females, despite three instances of close inbreeding. The sires of all offspring were less related to the mothers than non-sires regardless of the mother’s residence status. These results suggest that chimpanzees are capable of detecting relatedness and that, even when remaining natal, females can largely avoid, though not eliminate, inbreeding.

Next, I examined whether dispersal was associated with energetic, social, physiological and/or reproductive costs by comparing immigrant (n=10) and natal (n=9) females of similar age using 2358 hours of observational data. Natal and immigrant females did not differ in any energetic metric. Immigrant females received aggression from resident females more frequently than natal females. Immigrants spent less time in social grooming and more time self-grooming than natal females. Immigrant females primarily associated with resident males, had more social partners and lacked close social allies. There was no difference in levels of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites in immigrant and natal females. Immigrant females gave birth 2.5 years later than natal females, though the survival of their first offspring did not differ. These results indicate that immigrant females in Gombe National Park do not face energetic deficits upon transfer, but they do enter a hostile social environment and have a delayed first birth.

Next, I examined whether chimpanzees use condition- and phenotype-dependent cues in making dispersal decisions. I examined the effect of social and environmental conditions present at the time females of known age matured (n=25) on the females’ dispersal decisions. Females were more likely to disperse if they had more male maternal relatives and thus, a high risk of inbreeding. Females with a high ranking mother and multiple maternal female kin tended to disperse less frequently, suggesting that a strong female kin network provides benefits to the maturing daughter. Females were also somewhat less likely to disperse when fewer unrelated males were present in the group. Habitat quality and intrasexual competition did not affect dispersal decisions. Using a larger sample of 62 females observed as adults in Gombe, I also detected an effect of phenotypic differences in personality on the female’s dispersal decisions; extraverted, agreeable and open females were less likely to disperse.

Natural observations show that apes use grooming and play as social currency, but no experimental manipulations have been carried out to measure the effects of these behaviors on relationship formation, an essential component of integration. Thirty chimpanzees and 25 bonobos were given a choice between an unfamiliar human who had recently groomed or played with them over one who did not. Both species showed a preference for the human that had interacted with them, though the effect was driven by males. These results support the idea that grooming and play act as social currency in great apes that can rapidly shape social relationships between unfamiliar individuals. Further investigation is needed to elucidate the use of social currency in female apes.

I conclude that dispersal in female chimpanzees is flexible and the balance of costs and benefits varies for each individual. Females likely take into account social cues present at maturity and their own phenotype in choosing a settlement path and are especially sensitive to the presence of maternal male kin. The primary cost associated with philopatry is inbreeding risk and the primary cost associated with dispersal is delay in the age at first birth, presumably resulting from intense social competition. Finally, apes may strategically make use of affiliative behavior in pursuing particular relationships, something that should be useful in the integration process.

The effect of spatial scale on interactions between two weevils and their parasitoid

1. The effect of spatial scale on the interactions between three hymenopteran parasitoids and their weevil hosts was investigated. The parasitoid Mesopolobus incultus (Walker) parasitised Gymnetron pascuorum Gyll.; the parasitoids Entodon sparetus (Walker) and Bracon sp. parasitised Mecinus pyraster Herbst. Both of these weevils develop inside the seedhead of Plantago lanceolata L. but occupy different niches. Seedheads were sampled annually from 162 plants at each of two experimental sites consisting of a series of habitat patches of two distinct sizes. Data were analysed from three site-years. 2. Parasitoid densities at each site-year were closely related to the abundance of their respective weevil hosts. The overall proportion of hosts parasitised was more variable for M. incultus than for E. sparetus and Bracon sp. 3. Changes in spatial scale affected the variability of parasitoid densities. For M. incultus, there was generally a greater degree of additional heterogeneity for all increases of scale; for E. sparetus, this was true only at the largest scales; for Bracon sp., all components of variance were negative. 4. The rate of parasitism was related to host density in different ways at different spatial scales. Mesopolobus incultus exhibited inverse density dependence at the finest (seedhead) scale, direct density dependence at the intermediate (plant) scale, and density independence at the large (habitat area 729 m2) scale. Entodon sparetus showed no response to variation in host density at any spatial scale. Bracon sp. showed direct density dependence only at the intermediate and largest scales. 5. Parasitoids E. sparetus and Bracon sp. seemed able to detect more than one M. pyraster individual in seedheads with multiple host occupancy; a greater incidence of conspecific parasitoids than expected emerged from such seedheads.

Extended model of pedestrian escalator behaviour based on data collected within a Chinese underground station

This paper presents data relating to pedestrian escalator behaviour collected in an underground station in Shanghai, China. While data was not collected under emergency or simulated emergency conditions, it is argued that the data collected under rush-hour conditions - where commuters are under time pressures to get to work on time - may be used to approximate emergency evacuation conditions - where commuters are also under time pressures to exit the building as quickly as possible. Data pertaining to escalator/stair choice, proportion of walkers to riders, walker speeds and side usage are presented. The collected data is used to refine the buildingEXODUS escalator model allowing the agents to select whether to use an escalator or neighbouring parallel stair based on congestion conditiions at the base of the stair/escalator and expected travel times. The new model, together with the collected data, is used to simulate a series of hypothetical evacuation scenarios to demonstrate the impact of escalators on evacuation performance.

Modelling pedestrian escalator behaviour

This paper presents an escalator model for use in circulation and evacuation analysis. As part of the model development, human factors data was collected from a Spanish underground station. The collected data relates to: escalator/stair choice, rider/walker preference, rider side preference, walker travel speeds and escalator flow rates. The dataset provides insight into pedestrian behaviour in utilising escalators and is a useful resource for both circulation and evacuation models. Based on insight derived from the dataset a detailed microscopic escalator model which incorporates person-person interactions has been developed. A range of demonstration evacuation scenarios are presented using the newly developed microscopic escalator model.

Capturing teachers' experience of learning design through case studies

This article distinguishes three dimensions to learning design: a technological infrastructure, a conceptual framework for practice that focuses on the creation of structured sequences of learning activities, and a way to represent and share practice through the use of mediating artefacts. Focusing initially on the second of these dimensions, the article reports the key findings from an exploratory study, eLIDA CAMEL. This project examined a hitherto under-researched aspect of learning design: what teachers who are new to the domain perceive to be its value as a framework for practice in the design of both flexible and classroom-based learning. Data collection comprised 13 case studies constructed from participants' self-reports. These suggest that providing students with a structured sequence of learning activities was the major value to teachers. The article additionally discusses the potential of such case studies to function as mediating artefacts for practitioners who are considering experimenting with learning design.

WPS orchestration using the Taverna workbench: The eScience approach

eScience is an umbrella concept which covers internet technologies, such as web service orchestration that involves manipulation and processing of high volumes of data, using simple and efficient methodologies. This concept is normally associated with bioinformatics, but nothing prevents the use of an identical approach for geoinfomatics and OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) web services like WPS (Web Processing Service). In this paper we present an extended WPS implementation based on the PyWPS framework using an automatically generated WSDL (Web Service Description Language) XML document that replicates the WPS input/output document structure used during an Execute request to a server. Services are accessed using a modified SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) interface provided by PyWPS, that uses service and input/outputs identifiers as element names. The WSDL XML document is dynamically generated by applying XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) to the getCapabilities XML document that is generated by PyWPS. The availability of the SOAP interface and WSDL description allows WPS instances to be accessible to workflow development software like Taverna, enabling users to build complex workflows using web services represented by interconnecting graphics. Taverna will transform the visual representation of the workflow into a SCUFL (Simple Conceptual Unified Flow Language) based XML document that can be run internally or sent to a Taverna orchestration server. SCUFL uses a dataflow-centric orchestration model as opposed to the more commonly used orchestration language BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) which is process-centric.

Climate change impacts on sea–air fluxes of CO2 in three Arctic seas: a sensitivity study using Earth observation

We applied coincident Earth observation data collected during 2008 and 2009 from multiple sensors (RA2, AATSR and MERIS, mounted on the European Space Agency satellite Envisat) to characterise environmental conditions and integrated sea-air fluxes of CO2 in three Arctic seas (Greenland, Barents, Kara). We assessed net CO2 sink sensitivity due to changes in temperature, salinity and sea ice duration arising from future climate scenarios. During the study period the Greenland and Barents seas were net sinks for atmospheric CO2, with integrated sea-air fluxes of -36 +/- 14 and -11 +/- 5 Tg C yr(-1), respectively, and the Kara Sea was a weak net CO2 source with an integrated sea-air flux of +2.2 +/- 1.4 TgC yr(-1). The combined integrated CO2 sea-air flux from all three was -45 +/- 18 TgC yr(-1). In a sensitivity analysis we varied temperature, salinity and sea ice duration. Variations in temperature and salinity led to modification of the transfer velocity, solubility and partial pressure of CO2 taking into account the resultant variations in alkalinity and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Our results showed that warming had a strong positive effect on the annual integrated sea-air flux of CO2 (i.e. reducing the sink), freshening had a strong negative effect and reduced sea ice duration had a small but measurable positive effect. In the climate change scenario examined, the effects of warming in just over a decade of climate change up to 2020 outweighed the combined effects of freshening and reduced sea ice duration. Collectively these effects gave an integrated sea-air flux change of +4.0 TgC in the Greenland Sea, +6.0 Tg C in the Barents Sea and +1.7 Tg C in the Kara Sea, reducing the Greenland and Barents sinks by 11% and 53 %, respectively, and increasing the weak Kara Sea source by 81 %. Overall, the regional integrated flux changed by +11.7 Tg C, which is a 26% reduction in the regional sink. In terms of CO2 sink strength, we conclude that the Barents Sea is the most susceptible of the three regions to the climate changes examined. Our results imply that the region will cease to be a net CO2 sink in the 2050s.