In this article we have outlined a formal framework for an abstract approach to music and music composition. The model is formulated in terms of objects that have attributes, obey relationships, and are subject to certain well-defined operations. The motivation for this approach uses traditional terms and concepts of music theory, but the approach itself is formal and uses the language of mathematics. The universal object is an audio wave; partials, sounds, and compositions are special objects, which are placed in a hierarchical order based on time scales. The objects have both static and dynamic attributes. When we realize a composition, we assign values to each of its attributes: a (scalar) value to a static attribute, an envelope and a size to a dynamic attribute. A composition is then a trajectory in the space of aural events, and the complex audio wave is its formal representation. Sounds are fibers in the space of aural events, from which the composer weaves the trajectory of a composition. Each sound object in turn is made up of partials, which are the elementary building blocks of any music composition. The partials evolve on the fastest time scale in the hierarchy of partials, sounds, and …

This article discusses the missionary organs of Chiquitos and their relevance for musical practice

The notion of formalized music implies that a musical composition can be described in mathematical terms. In this article we explore some formal aspects of music and propose a framework for an abstract approach.

Notes and Documents column including a document honoring Rella Watts Looney, who was inducted into the annual Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame in 1999. It also describes the journey of the Kilgen Theater Organ being moved from WKY Radio to the Civic Center Auditorium, and eventually to the State Museum of History.

The purpose of this study was to begin to investigate the cognitive and affective attitudes that gifted students have about computers. As a teacher of gifted students in the field of computer programming, I wanted to learn what these students thought about the machine as a part of their lives. I discovered that it is far more current than I had thought. The computer is as important to these students as is the telephone, television, the microwave, or any other appliance. I also learned that unlike these other appliances, the computer is far more useful and interconnected to these students. It is not a substitute for friends or family, but it is a partner in many of the things that these students do for fun, work, or for profit.

One of the challenges for characterizing and modeling realistic multimedia applications is the lack of access to source codes. On-chip performance counters effectively resolve this problem by monitoring run-time behaviors at the instruction-level. This paper presents a novel technique of characterizing and modeling workloads at the instruction level for realistic multimedia applications using hardware performance counters. A variety of instruction counts are collected from some multimedia applications, such as RealPlayer, GSM Vocoder, MPEG encoder/decoder, and speech synthesizer. These instruction counts can be used to form a set of abstract characteristic parameters directly related to a processor`s architectural features. Based on microprocessor architectural constraints and these calculated abstract parameters, the architectural performance bottleneck for a specific application can be estimated. Meanwhile, the bottleneck estimation can provide suggestions about viable architectural/functional improvement for certain workloads. The biggest advantage of this new characterization technique is a better understanding of processor utilization efficiency and architectural bottleneck for each application. This technique also provides predictive insight of future architectural enhancements and their affect on current codes. In this paper the authors also attempt to model architectural effect on processor utilization without memory influence. They derive formulas for calculating CPI{sub 0}, CPI without memory effect, and …

Article presenting Frank Tipler's concepts and arguments, and highlighting the value of his orientation for near-death studies. Tipler's work takes the steam out of scientific rejection of religious, spiritual, or noetic phenomena, and makes it possible to accept these phenomena while maintaining a strictly scientific posture.

Article traces the influence of prohibition and temperance during the territorial period of Oklahoma's history in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Although saloons and breweries represented much of the town's industry, anti-liquor groups argued for reform.

Topics discussed in the conference included the following: Radiation Physics, Radiation Chemistry and modelling--Radiation physics and dosimetry; Electron transfer in biological media; Radiation chemistry; Biophysical and biochemical modelling; Mechanisms of DNA damage; Assays of DNA damage; Energy deposition in micro volumes; Photo-effects; Special techniques and technologies; Oxidative damage. Molecular and cellular effects-- Photobiology; Cell cycle effects; DNA damage: Strand breaks; DNA damage: Bases; DNA damage Non-targeted; DNA damage: other; Chromosome aberrations: clonal; Chromosomal aberrations: non-clonal; Interactions: Heat/Radiation/Drugs; Biochemical effects; Protein expression; Gene induction; Co-operative effects; ``Bystander'' effects; Oxidative stress effects; Recovery from radiation damage. DNA damage and repair -- DNA repair genes; DNA repair deficient diseases; DNA repair enzymology; Epigenetic effects on repair; and Ataxia and ATM.

Notes and Documents column including a document honoring Parker McKenzie, who was inducted into the annual Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame in 1999. It also includes a document describing the contents and providing historical context for the Dorothy K. Elder Collection at the State Museum of History.

For the Record section including the minutes of the quarterly board meeting of the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Historical Society that was held on July 28, 1999.

Abstract: It is possible and desirable to supplement the traditional neurological and metaphysical explanatory models of the near-death experience (NDE) with yet a third type of explanatory model that links the neurological and the metaphysical. I set forth the rudiments of this model, the Theory of the Extraneuronal Hyperspace, with six propositions. I then use this theory to explain three of the pressing issues within NDE scholarship: the veridicality, precognition and "fear-death experience" phenomena.

Easy-to-use interfaces are a class of interfaces that fall between public access interfaces and graphical user interfaces in usability and cognitive difficulty. We describe characteristics of easy-to-use interfaces by the properties of four dimensions: selection, navigation, direct manipulation, and contextual metaphors. Another constraint we introduced was to include as little text as possible, and what text we have will be in at least four languages. Formative evaluations were conducted to identify and isolate these characteristics. Our application is a visual interface for a home automation system intended for a diverse set of users. The design will be expanded to accommodate the visually disabled in the near future.

Article describes the journey of John C. Chapman, the earliest resident of the town of Dover, Oklahoma, to build a community there in the late nineteenth century.

This is the fourth LLNL-sponsored Women's Technical and Professional Symposium. This year's theme: ''Excellence through the Millennium,'' focuses on the cutting edge work being done at LLNL and the many contributions of women to our science and technology mission. We hope this Symposium gives each person attending a better idea of the broad scope of the Laboratory's mission and their place within the organization. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that we all work in support of science and technology despite the diversity of our experience. This Symposium provides an opportunity to reflect on our past and to begin to plan our future.

On June 17--18, 1998, the Department of Energy`s (DOE) Office of Worker and Community Transition convened its sixth National Stakeholder Workshop at the Ramada Plaza Hotel Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia. Approximately 325 stakeholders attended representing DOE headquarters and field offices, contractors, labor organizations, state and local government, education and community interest groups. The meeting addressed the progress made on the issues and challenges identified at the last stakeholder`s meeting in Oakland, California on April 9--11, 1997. Also discussed were the full range of the Department`s work force issues and creative solutions to the inherent challenges of simultaneously implementing the Department`s post Cold-War mission, work force restructuring guidance, contract reform objectives, asset disposition, performance-based management requirements, and business process improvement policies. The format of the Workshop included several plenary sessions and a number of small group discussion sessions. The small group sessions focused on topics related to labor issues, work force restructuring, work force planning, community transition, and employee concerns. The sessions provided a wide range of views on worker and community transition issues. The plenary sessions of the Workshop included presentations on the following topics: welcome and introductions; opening remarks; building a better labor-management relationship; keynote speech from Secretary …

This is the fifth Village Power workshop sponsored by NREL. We have held these meetings every year since 1993, to focus, challenge, and provide a forum for interaction among practitioners working in the field of using renewable energy technologies as an economically viable pathway to electrification of rural populations throughout the world. Starting with a small group of 30 colleagues in 1993, this ''workshop'' has doubled in size every year. When the NREL staff was planning for this meeting, they were hoping for something around 400 participants. We are now looking at over 500, and we apologize for the somewhat cramped accommodations. This overwhelming response, however, shows that the use of renewable energy to solve some of the world's serious problems is coming of age. This meeting, this ''conference'' (it's clearly no longer a workshop) marks a transition. A transition from the viewpoint that renewables are, and forever will be a technology of the future; to the reality that renewables have come of age. We have technologies available today, at today's prices, that can make a substantive contribution to the pressing needs of environmentally sustainable development in the world. This is a collection of all the papers presented at the …