The Musical Ear Test,a new reliable test for measuring musical competence

This paper reports results from three experiments using the Musical Ear Test (MET), a new test designed for measuring musical abilities in both musicians and non-musicians in an objective way with a relatively short duration (< 20 min.). In the first experiment we show how the MET is capable of clearly distinguishing between a group of professional musicians and a group of non-musicians. In the second experiment we demonstrate that results from the MET are strongly correlated with measures of musical expertise obtained using an imitation test. In the third experiment we show that the MET also clearly distinguishes groups of non-musicians, amateurs and professional musicians. The test is found to have a large internal consistency (Cronbach alpha: 0.87). We further show a correlation with amount of practice within the group of professionals as well as a correlation with a forward digit span test.     

An Arendtian perspective on inclusive education: towards a reimagined vocabulary

Inclusive education currently appears to be undergoing a crisis and re-examination. This paper presents a new approach to thinking about inclusiveness in the school context. Many positions within inclusive education seem to take political, social and ethical perspectives as a starting point, which has allowed inclusive movements and initiatives around the world to succumb to neo-liberal policy-making and has neglected the development of an educational vocabulary that is theoretically and conceptually appropriate for confronting teachers’ central concerns regarding inclusive practices. The concepts of suspension, bearing with strangers and enlarged thought inspired by Hannah Arendt provide a basis for a re-imagining of inclusive education and for outlining a future school in which inclusiveness is embedded in the very way we think and position ourselves as teachers and pupils.     

Education and the concept of commons. A pedagogical reinterpretation

This paper explores the concepts of commons and commoning from an educational vantage point. These concepts point to places and activities that are shared, communal and un-privatised, in other words they point to places and practices not yet enclosed or appropriated by capital and market logics. Education is certainly a place and an activity that is increasingly being enclosed and appropriated by these logics, but at the same time education seems to always find ways of escaping this enclosure, and teachers and students find ways of being that escapes appropriation. Exploring the concepts of commons and commoning from an educational vantage point is thus an attempt at describing schooling as an activity that takes place in common and makes something common. By sharing and introducing a subject matter to the students, the teacher offers a shared space of exploration and study that can escape the instrumental and proprietarian framework of the neoliberal education agenda.     

Marketing/R&D integration in the pharmaceutical industry

Integrating marketing and R&D inputs is one of the fundamental challenges in managing innovation. In the pharmaceutical industry, considering its reputed ‘technology push’ model of innovation, the challenge of integrating marketing and R&D could hardly be greater. Thus, the recent trend among pharmaceutical firms of implementing Marketing/R&D integrating mechanisms calls for upgrading our conceptualization of the innovation process in this industry. It also raises important questions regarding Marketing's contribution in new product development, and how to organize to assure that contribution is leveraged. We use the case of a pharmaceutical firm which recently implemented Marketing/R&D integrating mechanisms to examine Marketing's new roles. We find that the extreme conditions surrounding innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, notably the need to cope with Knightean uncertainty, highlight important contributions of Marketing input in R&D that deserve more attention. We suggest that Marketing's most important contribution under these conditions lies in ‘not getting it wrong’ rather than ‘getting it right,’ in setting minimum criteria in project evaluations rather than definite targets, and in refocusing the attention of R&D staff through the very process of providing this input. Given the value of these contributions, modern pharmaceutical firms would indeed be ill advised to think of drug discovery as merely a linear process. Drug development has become an interactive process where the timing, type and impact of Marketing involvement is balanced and managed via certain organizational mechanisms throughout the R&D process, which is an iterative one.     

The effect of textile air permeability on the drag of high-speed winter sports apparel

In a number of sport disciplines characterized by high velocities, aerodynamic performance of sports apparel is a concern. The goal is often to reduce the aerodynamic drag force and thereby increase speed. In the design of optimized competition apparel the fabric properties will be very important. One fabric property which has traditionally been considered an influencing parameter on aerodynamic performance is the air permeability. In this paper the effect of air-permeability, treated as an independent variable, upon aerodynamic drag on a bluff body is investigated. Similar multilayer textiles with internal membranes regulating air permeability were tested on cylindrical models in wind tunnel experiments in order to identify a possible relation between air-permeability and drag force. A weak dependence of flow transition on air-permeability could be found, but this could be considered to have a limited effect on the aerodynamic performance of sports garments.     

Best entry points for structured document retrieval—Part I: Characteristics

Structured document retrieval makes use of document components as the basis of the retrieval process, rather than complete documents. The inherent relationships between these components make it vital to support users’ natural browsing behaviour in order to offer effective and efficient access to structured documents. This paper examines the concept of best entry points, which are document components from which the user can browse to obtain optimal access to relevant document components. In particular this paper investigates the basic characteristics of best entry points.     

Young people’s experiences of parental involvement in youth sport

Recently parental involvement in youth sport has intensified, challenging the understanding of youth sports as an arena where adolescents can develop their identity and autonomy. On this background, our study explores how adolescents understand and negotiate their parents’ involvement in sport and how they define ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. Our empirical setting is Norway, and we draw on data from 16 focus group interviews among 13–14-year-olds (n?=?92) recruited from two lower secondary schools. The analysis shows that young people distinguish between different aspects of the sport activity when defining ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. When discussing sport as a healthy activity necessary for physical and social development, the young people interviewed approve of parents’ role in regulating and encouraging participation. When considering the athletic aspects and peer sociability, however, they see parental involvement as mostly undesirable. The analysis also shows that the adolescents generally describe their parents as attentive to the boundaries their children draw for them about levels and types of involvement. Therefore, young people should be seen not only as subjected to parental involvement but also as active co-constructors of valid parental roles in and beyond the sporting arena.     

Pollution monitoring by dosimetry and passive diffusion sampling for evaluation of environmental conditions for paintings in microclimate frames

Pollutants and their potential degradation of paintings have been measured for the first time in microclimate frames (mc-frames), which are used to protect paintings. The pollutants that were measured include both inorganic pollutants, which originate mainly from external sources, and organic pollutants from mainly internal sources. Those originating from the outdoors enter rooms and subsequently mc-frames at a rate depending on the ventilation rates (air exchange rates) of the mc-frames. The concentration of gaseous pollutants emitted within the mc-frames will depend on net emission rates of the materials used to make the mc-frames, their design, and their ventilation rates. In the EU PROPAINT project measurements of gaseous air pollutants and climatic conditions were performed at various locations both inside and outside different state-of-the-art mc-frames. Diffusive passive pollution gas samplers were used together with different types of dosimeters. Results show that the dosimeters respond to either the photo-oxidizing conditions or the level of volatile organic acids in the environments both in the museums and within the mc-frames. Two dosimeters, the Early Warning Organic (EWO) made from a synthetic polymer and the Resin Mastic coated Piezo electric Quartz Crystals (RM-PQC) respond to photo-oxidation and showed higher values outside than inside the mc-frames. Two other dosimeters, the Glass Slide Dosimeter (GSD) and the Lead coated Piezo electric Quartz Crystals (L-PQC) respond to volatile organic acids and yielded higher values inside than outside the mc-frames. This study emphasizes the need for further work to determine environmental damage functions for paintings, in particular for the effects of organic acids. Such information is essential for the evaluation of the protective effects of mc-frames for paintings. The use of mc-frames is increasing and it is very important to know that this protective measure does not introduce new risks.