EXTENDED-RANGE OBOE: THE IMPACT OF TECHNICAL AND MUSICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN 19th-CENTURY AND CONTEMPORARY OBOE REPERTOIRE

I believe that the purpose of expanding the oboe’s repertoire is to not only create original compositions, but to also utilize technical advancements in order to achieve access to a wider range of repertoire through the art of transcription. This paper examines the various paths to achieving such expansion, including utilizing unique performer skills, use of auxiliary instruments, advancements in the instrument itself and musical developments that challenge the perception of the oboe’s solo role in a particular era of music history. The oboe need not be relegated to the confines of a compositionally limited stereotype. The goal of my “extended-range” dissertation project is to expand the “range” of programmable repertoire, with a focus on music in both the 19th and 21st-centuries, while simultaneously expanding the technical capabilities and expectations of the modern oboe—in part by exploiting the new possibilities of the recently invented low-A extension key.

Dialogic relations in the Brazilian scientific dissemination from the 19th century: a look in the light of the bakhtinian Metalinguistics

The present study aims at presenting a metalinguistic analysis of one of the Brazilian scientific dissemination architectonics aspects of the 19th century, materialized in the concrete utterance of the Conferências Populares da Glória: the issue of dialogic relations. For such, it adopts as a theoretical-methodological support the discourse analysis and dialogic theory proposed by Bakhtin, aiming to show how the scientific dissemination utterance establishes dialogic-semantic relations with utterances from other ideological spheres, as example of scientific, philosophic and religious utterances in circulation in sociodiscursive context of the nineteenth century.

Ying yu ji quan : 6 juan /

Printed on double leaves in folded back oriental style, in columns.

The jubilee story of the China Inland Mission : with portraits, illustrations & maps / by Marshall Broomhall.

http://www.archive.org/details/jubileechinamis00broouoft

Changes in the extent of glaciers in the Eastern Terskey Alatoo, the Central Tien-Shan, in response to climatic fluctuations in between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 21st century

Changes in the extent of glaciers and rates of glacier termini retreat in the eastern Terskey-Alatoo Range, the Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia have been evaluated using the remote sensing techniques. Changes in the extent of 335 glaciers between the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA; mid-19th century), 1990 and 2003 have been estimated through the delineation of glacier outlines and the LIA moraine positions on the Landsat TM and ASTER imagery for 1990 and 2003 respectively. By 2003, the glacier surface area had decreased by 19% of the LIA value, which constitutes a 76 km(2) reduction in glacier surface area. Mapping of 109 glaciers using the 1965 1:25,000 maps revealed that glacier surface area decreased by 12.6% of the 1965 value between 1965 and 2003. Detailed mapping of 10 glaciers using historical maps and aerial photographs from the 1943-1977 period, has enabled glacier extent variations over the 20th century to be identified with a higher temporal resolution. Glacial retreat was slow in the early 20th century but increased considerably between 1943 and 1956 and then again after 1977. The post-1990 period has been marked by the most rapid glacier retreat since the end of the LIA. The observed changes in the extent of glaciers are in line with the observed climatic warming. The regional weather stations have revealed a strong climatic warming during the ablation season since the 1950s at a rate of 0.02-0.03 degrees Ca-1. At the higher elevations in the study area represented by the Tien Shan meteorological station, the summer warming was accompanied by negative anomalies in annual precipitation in the 1990s enhancing glacier retreat. However, trends in precipitation in the post-1997 period cannot be evaluated due to the change in observational practices at this station. Neither station in the study area exhibits significant long-term trends in precipitation. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In the Ojibway country : a story of early missions on the Minnesota frontier

http://www.archive.org/details/inojibwaycountry00scheiala

Dawn on the hills of T'ang, or, Missions in China / by Harlan P. Beach.

http://www.archive.org/details/dawnonthehillsof008853mbp

Papers presented at conference on the situation in China : under the auspices of the Committee of Reference and Counsel, representing the Foreign Missions Conference of North America : February 29, 1912, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

http://www.archive.org/details/paperspresenteda00foreuoft

Distribution of North Pacific right whales (Eubalaena japonica) as shown by 19th and 20th century whaling catch and sighting records

North Pacific right whales (Eubalaena japonica) were extensively exploited in the 19th century, and their recovery was further retarded (severely so in the eastern population) by illegal Soviet catches in the 20th century, primarily in the 1960s. Monthly plots of right whale sightings and catches from both the 19th and 20th centuries are provided, using data summarized by Scarff (1991, from the whale charts of Matthew Fontaine Maury) and Brownell et al. (2001), respectively. Right whales had an extensive offshore distribution in the 19th century, and were common in areas (such as the Gulf of Alaska and Sea of Japan) where few or no right whales occur today. Seasonal movements of right whales are apparent in the data, although to some extent these reflect survey and whaling effort. That said, these seasonal movements indicate a general northward migration in spring from lower latitudes, and major concentrations above 40°N in summer. Sightings diminished and occurred further south in autumn, and few animals were recorded anywhere in winter. These north-south migratory movements support the hypothesis of two largely discrete populations of right whales in the eastern and western North Pacific. Overall, these analyses confirm that the size and range of the right whale population is now considerably diminished in the North Pacific relative to the situation during the peak period of whaling for this species in the 19th century. For management purposes, new surveys are urgently required to establish the present distribution of this species; existing data suggest that the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, the Okhotsk Sea, the Kuril Islands and the coast of Kamchatka are the areas with the greatest likelihood of finding right whales today.

Glaciers and climate in northern Sweden during the 19th and 20th century

Our understanding of the climate of northern Sweden during the late Holocene is largely dependent on proxy-data series. These datasets remain spatially and temporally sparse and instrumental series are rare prior to the mid 19th century. Nevertheless, the glaciology and paleo-glaciology of the region has a strong potential significance for the exploration of climate change scenarios, past and future. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the 19th and 20th century climate in the northern Swedish mountain range. This provides a good opportunity to analyse the natural variability of the climate before the onset of the industrial epoch. Developing a temporal understanding of fluctuations in glacier front positions and glacier mass balance that is linked to a better understanding of their interaction and relative significance to climate is fundamental in the assessment of past climate. I have chosen to investigate previously unexplored temperature data from northern Sweden from between 1802 and 1860 and combined it with a temperature series from a synoptic station in Haparanda, which began operation in 1859, in order to create a reliable long temperature series for the period 1802 to 2002. I have also investigated two different glaciers, Pårteglaciären and Salajekna, which are located in different climatic environments. These glaciers have, from a Swedish perspective, long observational records. Furthermore, I have investigated a recurring jökulhlaup at the glacier Sälkaglaciären in order to analyse glacier-climate relationships with respect to the jökulhlaups. A number of datasets are presented, including: glacier frontal changes, in situ and photogrammetric mass balance data, in situ and satellite radar interferometry measurements of surface velocity, radar measurements, ice volume data and a temperature series. All these datasets are analysed in order to investigate the response of the glaciers to climatic stimuli, to attribute specific behaviour to particular climates and to analyse the 19th and 20th century glacier/climate relationships in northern Sweden. The 19th century was characterized by cold conditions in northern Sweden, particularly in winter. Significant changes in the amplitude of the annual temperature cycle are evident. Through the 19th century there is a marked decreasing trend in the amplitude of the data, suggesting a change towards a prevalence of maritime (westerly) air masses, something which has characterised the 20th century. The investigations on Salajekna support the conclusion that the major part of the 19th century was cold and dry. The 19th century advance of Salajekna was probably caused by colder climate in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, coupled with a weakening of the westerly airflow. The investigations on Pårteglaciären show that the glacier has a response time of ~200 years. It also suggests that there was a relatively high frequency of easterly winds providing the glacier with winter precipitation during the 19th century. Glaciers have very different response times and are sensitive to different climatic parameters. Glaciers in rather continental areas of the Subarctic and Arctic can have very long response times because of mass balance considerations and not primarily the glacier dynamics. This is of vital importance for analyzing Arctic and Subarctic glacier behaviour in a global change perspective. It is far from evident that the behaviour of the glacier fronts today reflects the present climate.

Raster maps for 29 environmental variables in three geographical regions

Aim: Greater understanding of the processes underlying biological invasions is required to determine and predict invasion risk. Two subspecies of olive (Olea europaea subsp. europaea and Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata) have been introduced into Australia from the Mediterranean Basin and southern Africa during the 19th century. Our aim was to determine to what extent the native environmental niches of these two olive subspecies explain the current spatial segregation of the subspecies in their non-native range. We also assessed whether niche shifts had occurred in the non-native range, and examined whether invasion was associated with increased or decreased occupancy of niche space in the non-native range relative to the native range. Location: South-eastern Australia, Mediterranean Basin and southern Africa. Methods: Ecological niche models (ENMs) were used to quantify the similarity of native and non-native realized niches. Niche shifts were characterized by the relative contribution of niche expansion, stability and contraction based on the relative occupancy of environmental space by the native and non-native populations. Results: Native ENMs indicated that the spatial segregation of the two subspecies in their non-native range was partly determined by differences in their native niches. However, we found that environmentally suitable niches were less occupied in the non-native range relative to the native range, indicating that niche shifts had occurred through a contraction of the native niches after invasion, for both subspecies. Main conclusions: The mapping of environmental factors associated with niche expansion, stability or contraction allowed us to identify areas of greater invasion risk. This study provides an example of successful invasions that are associated with niche shifts, illustrating that introduced plant species are sometimes readily able to establish in novel environments. In these situations the assumption of niche stasis during invasion, which is implicitly assumed by ENMs, may be unreasonable.

Letters from the Far East; being impressions of a tour around the world by way of England, India, China, and Japan during 1885-86.

Smith, American travellers, F41.

An address, intended to promote a geological and mineralogical survey of Pennsylvania, the publication of a series of geological maps, and the formation of state and county geological and mineralogical collections /

"To which are prefixed the resolutions of the meeting before which it was read."

Elliptic curves, group law, and efficient computation

This thesis is about the derivation of the addition law on an arbitrary elliptic curve and efficiently adding points on this elliptic curve using the derived addition law. The outcomes of this research guarantee practical speedups in higher level operations which depend on point additions. In particular, the contributions immediately find applications in cryptology. Mastered by the 19th century mathematicians, the study of the theory of elliptic curves has been active for decades. Elliptic curves over finite fields made their way into public key cryptography in late 1980’s with independent proposals by Miller [Mil86] and Koblitz [Kob87]. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), following Miller’s and Koblitz’s proposals, employs the group of rational points on an elliptic curve in building discrete logarithm based public key cryptosystems. Starting from late 1990’s, the emergence of the ECC market has boosted the research in computational aspects of elliptic curves. This thesis falls into this same area of research where the main aim is to speed up the additions of rational points on an arbitrary elliptic curve (over a field of large characteristic). The outcomes of this work can be used to speed up applications which are based on elliptic curves, including cryptographic applications in ECC. The aforementioned goals of this thesis are achieved in five main steps. As the first step, this thesis brings together several algebraic tools in order to derive the unique group law of an elliptic curve. This step also includes an investigation of recent computer algebra packages relating to their capabilities. Although the group law is unique, its evaluation can be performed using abundant (in fact infinitely many) formulae. As the second step, this thesis progresses the finding of the best formulae for efficient addition of points. In the third step, the group law is stated explicitly by handling all possible summands. The fourth step presents the algorithms to be used for efficient point additions. In the fifth and final step, optimized software implementations of the proposed algorithms are presented in order to show that theoretical speedups of step four can be practically obtained. In each of the five steps, this thesis focuses on five forms of elliptic curves over finite fields of large characteristic. A list of these forms and their defining equations are given as follows: (a) Short Weierstrass form, y2 = x3 + ax + b, (b) Extended Jacobi quartic form, y2 = dx4 + 2ax2 + 1, (c) Twisted Hessian form, ax3 + y3 + 1 = dxy, (d) Twisted Edwards form, ax2 + y2 = 1 + dx2y2, (e) Twisted Jacobi intersection form, bs2 + c2 = 1, as2 + d2 = 1, These forms are the most promising candidates for efficient computations and thus considered in this work. Nevertheless, the methods employed in this thesis are capable of handling arbitrary elliptic curves. From a high level point of view, the following outcomes are achieved in this thesis. - Related literature results are brought together and further revisited. For most of the cases several missed formulae, algorithms, and efficient point representations are discovered. - Analogies are made among all studied forms. For instance, it is shown that two sets of affine addition formulae are sufficient to cover all possible affine inputs as long as the output is also an affine point in any of these forms. In the literature, many special cases, especially interactions with points at infinity were omitted from discussion. This thesis handles all of the possibilities. - Several new point doubling/addition formulae and algorithms are introduced, which are more efficient than the existing alternatives in the literature. Most notably, the speed of extended Jacobi quartic, twisted Edwards, and Jacobi intersection forms are improved. New unified addition formulae are proposed for short Weierstrass form. New coordinate systems are studied for the first time. - An optimized implementation is developed using a combination of generic x86-64 assembly instructions and the plain C language. The practical advantages of the proposed algorithms are supported by computer experiments. - All formulae, presented in the body of this thesis, are checked for correctness using computer algebra scripts together with details on register allocations.

Reading nineteenth century schoolbooks online : user behavior in a digitized special collection

Special collections, because of the issues associated with conservation and use, a feature they share with archives, tend to be the most digitized areas in libraries. The Nineteenth Century Schoolbooks collection is a collection of 9000 rarely held nineteenth-century schoolbooks that were painstakingly collected over a lifetime of work by Prof. John A. Nietz, and donated to the Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh in 1958, which has since grown to 15,000. About 140 of these texts are completely digitized and showcased in a publicly accessible website through the University of Pittsburgh’s Library, along with a searchable bibliography of the entire collection, which expanded the awareness of this collection and its user base to beyond the academic community. The URL for the website is http://digital.library.pitt.edu/nietz/. The collection is a rich resource for researchers studying the intellectual, educational, and textbook publishing history of the United States. In this study, we examined several existing records collected by the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh in order to determine the identity and searching behaviors of the users of this collection. Some of the records examined include: 1) The results of a 3-month long user survey, 2) User access statistics including search queries for a period of one year, a year after the digitized collection became publicly available in 2001, and 3) E-mail input received by the website over 4 years from 2000-2004. The results of the study demonstrate the differences in online retrieval strategies used by academic researchers and historians, archivists, avocationists, and the general public, and the importance of facilitating the discovery of digitized special collections through the use of electronic finding aids and an interactive interface with detailed metadata.