Playing-Related Medical Injuries and Health Conditions in Collegiate Saxophonists: A Survey of Saxophonists in North American Universities

When compared to other areas of musical performance, medical research on the performing arts is limited when it comes to studies on woodwind players, particularly saxophonists. The gap in research may be attributed to the circumstances surrounding selection processes and identifying subjects for study. For example, saxophonists are not salaried professionals in orchestras, which are commonly pooled for medical research. Establishing contact with saxophonists to conduct studies can prove difficult due to the wide range of genres that utilize the saxophone. Some issues may also be attributed to research methodology. To find the onset of injuries, researchers in previous studies approached universities to investigate playing-related injuries and health conditions in collegiate musicians. Studies reveal injuries can occur before students in music enter the professional realm, and sometimes as early as high school or middle school. Studies pertaining to collegiate saxophonists are limited to multi-instrumental studies or specific case studies. The purpose of this study is to identify the presence of playing-related injuries and health conditions among collegiate saxophonists. For the purposes of this investigation, a survey was distributed to collegiate members of the North American Saxophone Alliance in 2018, asking students to respond to questions about whether they had experienced playing-related injuries or illnesses. To qualify for the survey, participants had to be at least 18 years old, be pursuing a music degree at a university in Canada or the United States, have saxophone as their primary instrument, and have been studying saxophone for at least one semester/trimester. There were 87 responses analyzed using Qualtrics Stats iQ. A total of 79 students (90.80%) reported musculoskeletal playing-related pain. The neck (66.67%), thumbs (52.87%), and wrists (52.87%) were the most reported areas. There were 71 orofacial injuries (81.61%), which included difficulty maintaining the embouchure and/or lip pain (52.87%), jaw pain (49.43%), tooth movement (43.68%), and velopharyngeal insufficiency (31.03%). Eighty students (91.95%) reported other playing-related complications, including stage fright (85.06%), hearing loss (32.18%), dizziness/blackouts (31.03%), and chest discomfort (13.79%). Of the 46 students who reported thumb pain, 41 students (89.13%) reported pain in the right thumb, while 21 students (45.65%) reported pain in the left thumb. While demographics, musical background, practice routine, and lifestyle correlated with some specific illnesses and areas with playing-related pain, there were not enough students free of playing-related complications to determine the significance of these findings. The survey did reveal that playing-related pain and health conditions are present among collegiate saxophonists. Therefore, it is necessary to educate students on the importance of seeking help at the onset of symptoms and to provide ways to mitigate them within performance practice. Further research is needed to determine the possible causation of playing-related pain in the right thumb, what preventative and treatment options students have used to resolve their symptoms and what factors or activities they have found worsen their symptoms, and lastly, to what extent injuries are prevalent among the saxophone community as a whole

The role of context in producing item interactions and false memories

[Abstract]: Cued recall with an extralist cue posed a challenge for traditional learning theory and is still a challenge for contemporary memory theory. Two of the contemporary challenges are to explain how episodic and semantic information is combined to and the presence of item interaction effects in this task. Five experiments demonstrate item interactions between an associate of the cue and words in the study list which are phonologically similar to that associate but otherwise unrelated to the cue. These interactions are far stronger in cued recall than in primed free association and they include false memories. The combination of episodic and semantic information and the item interactions can be explained by a class of models which posit distributed representations and which assume that the cue activates its associates and a contextual cue activates the list items. Linkages are drawn between the use of context in this setting and in other settings

A pressure-jump study on the interaction of osmolytes and crowders with cubic monoolein structures

Many vital processes that take place in biological cells involve remodeling of lipid membranes. These processes take place in a milieu that is packed with various solutes, ranging from ions and small organic osmolytes to proteins and other macromolecules, occupying about 30% of the available volume. In this work, we investigated how molecular crowding, simulated with the polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG), and the osmolytes urea and trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) affect the equilibration of cubic monoolein structures after a phase transition from a lamellar state induced by an abrupt pressure reduction. In absence of additives, swollen cubic crystallites form after the transition, releasing excess water over several hours. This process is reflected in a decreasing lattice constant and was monitored with small angle X-ray scattering. We found that the osmotic pressure exerted by PEG and TMAO, which are displaced from narrow inter-bilayer spaces, accelerates the equilibration. When the radius of gyration of the added PEG was smaller than the radius of the water channels of the cubic phase, the effect became more pronounced with increasing molecular weight of the polymers. As the release of hydration water from the cubic structures is accompanied by an increasing membrane curvature and a reduction of the interface between lipids and aqueous phase, urea, which has a slight affinity to reside near membrane surfaces, stabilized the swollen crystallites and slowed down the equilibration dynamics. Our results support the view that cellular solutes are important contributors to dynamic membrane processes, as they can accelerate dehydration of inter-bilayer spaces and promote or counteract membrane curvature

In situ characterization of the decomposition behavior of Mg(BH4)(2) by X-ray Raman scattering spectroscopy

We present an in situ study of the thermal decomposition of Mg(BH4)(2) in a hydrogen atmosphere of up to 4 bar and up to 500 degrees C using X-ray Raman scattering spectroscopy at the boron K-edge and the magnesium L2,3-edges. The combination of the fingerprinting analysis of both edges yields detailed quantitative information on the reaction products during decomposition, an issue of crucial importance in determining whether Mg(BH4)(2) can be used as a next-generation hydrogen storage material. This work reveals the formation of reaction intermediate(s) at 300 degrees C, accompanied by a significant hydrogen release without the occurrence of stable boron compounds such as amorphous boron or MgB12H12. At temperatures between 300 degrees C and 400 degrees C, further hydrogen release proceeds via the formation of higher boranes and crystalline MgH2. Above 400 degrees C, decomposition into the constituting elements takes place. Therefore, at moderate temperatures, Mg(BH4)(2) is shown to be a promising high-density hydrogen storage material with great potential for reversible energy storage applications.Peer reviewe

Temperature-induced formation of lubricous oxides in vanadium containing iron-based arc sprayed coatings

In the field of surface engineering, the use of self-lubricous coatings with the incorporation of vanadium represent a promising approach to reduce friction, thus contributing to the wear behavior. For vanadium containing hard coatings produced by means of thin film technology, the reduction in friction at elevated temperatures was repeatedly attributed to temperature-induced and tribo-oxidatively formed oxides which act as solid lubricant. Only very few studies focused on the tribological characteristics of vanadium containing arc sprayed coatings. In this study, the tribological characteristics of a vanadium containing iron-based arc sprayed deposit were investigated in dry sliding experiments under ambient conditions and different temperatures. Types of wear at the worn surfaces and counterparts were examined by means of electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The speciation of vanadium in the superficial layer was determined using X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. It was found that the vanadium-containing coating exhibited a distinctly reduction of the coefficient of friction above 450 °C which further decreased with increasing temperature. XANES spectroscopy indicated an increased oxidation state for the V component on the coating surface, suggesting the prevalence of specific vanadium oxides which promote a self-lubricating ability of the coating

Mentoring Interventions to Affect Juvenile Delinquency and Associated Problems: A Systematic Review

Mentoring is one of the most commonly used interventions to prevent, divert, and remediate youth engaged in, or thought to be at risk for delinquent behavior, school failure, aggression, or other antisocial behavior. In this update we report on a meta-analytic review of selective and indicated mentoring interventions that have been evaluated for their effects on delinquency outcomes for youth (e.g., arrest or conviction as a delinquent, self-reported involvement) and key associated outcomes (aggression, drug use, academic functioning). Of 164 identified studies published between 1970 and 2011, 46 met criteria for inclusion. Mean effects sizes were significant and positive for delinquency and academic functioning with trends (marginal significance level) for aggression and drug use. Effect sizes were modest by Cohen’s differentiation. However, there was heterogeneity in effect sizes across studies for each outcome. The obtained patterns of effects suggest mentoring may be valuable for those at-risk or already involved in delinquency and for associated outcomes. Comparison of study design (RCT vs. QE) did not show significant differences in effects. Moderator analysis showed larger effects when professional development was the motivation of the mentors for involvement, but not for basis of inclusion of participants (environmental vs. person basis of risk), presence of other interventions, or assessment of quality of fidelity. We also undertook the first systematic evaluation of key processes that seem to define how mentoring may aid youth (e.g. identification/modeling, teaching, emotional support, advocacy) to see if these related to effects. Based on studies we could code for the presence or absence of each as part of the program effort, analyses found stronger effects when emotional support and advocacy were emphasized. These results suggest mentoring is as effective for high-risk youth in relation to delinquency as many other preventive and treatment approaches and that emphasis on some theorized key processes may be more valuable than others. However, the collected set of studies is less informative than expected with quite limited specification about what comprised the mentoring program and implementation features. The juxtaposition of popular interest in mentoring and empirical evidence of benefits with the limited reporting of important features of the interventions is seen highlights the importance of more careful and extensive evaluations. Including features to understand testing of selection basis, program organization and features, implementation variations, and theorized processes for effects will greatly improve understanding of this intervention. All are essential to guide effective practice of this popular and very promising approach

Towards in-line real-time characterization of roll-to-roll produced ZTO/Ag/ITO thin films by hyperspectral imaging

Large area manufacturing processes of thin films such as large-area vacuum roll-to-roll coating of dielectric and gas permeation barrier layers in industry require a precise control of e.g. film thickness, homogeneity, chemical compositions, crystallinity and surface roughness. In order to determine these properties in real time, hyperspectral imaging is a novel, cost-efficient, and fast tool as in-line technology for large-area quality control. We demonstrate the application of hyperspectral imaging to characterize the thickness of thin films of the multilayer system ZTO/Ag/ITO produced by roll-to-roll magnetron sputtering on 220 mm wide polyethylene terephthalate substrate. X-ray reflectivity measurements are used to determine the thickness gradients of roll-to-roll produced foils with sub nanometer accuracy that serve as ground truth data to train a machine learning model for the interpretation of the hyperspectral imaging spectra. Based on the model, the sub-layer thicknesses on the complete substrate foil area were predicted which demonstrates the capabilities of this approach for large-scale in-line real-time quality control for industrial applications