Thesis (Ph. D.--Music)--University of California, San Diego, 2000. / Describes the structural elements and creative processes relating to the author's composition Dual closure, for clarinet and chamber ensemble; includes score to Dual closure from pp. 37-97, and a recording of the work on acc. sound recording. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of high band directors in the United States toward solo and ensemble activities. Independent variables such as teaching experience, level of education, MENC region in which directors taught, personal solo and ensemble activity experience, teaching assignment, and director-centered external factors (supplemental contracts, teaching evaluations, program awards) were used to investigate potential differences in attitudinal responses. Subjects were high school band directors (N = 557) chosen through a stratified random sample by state. Participation in the study included completing an online researcher-designed questionnaire that gathered demographic information as well as information regarding directors' attitudes towards benefits from student participation in solo and ensemble activities, the importance of such activities to directors, and attitudes towards student participation in local, regional, and state solo and ensemble festivals and contests. One-way analyses of variance and two-way multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to investigate potential differences in responses according to various independent variables. Significant differences were found in responses to statements of the importance of solo and ensemble to directors and of solo and ensemble festivals and contests according to region, solo and ensemble experience, and director-centered external factors. No significant differences were found for statements of director's attitudes toward benefits of student participation in solo and ensemble activities according to any independent variables. Results indicate that directors understand and believe strongly in the benefits of solo and ensemble activities to students, but factors such as time, job demands, band program expectations, and festival and contest adjudication, format, and timing may hinder directors' inclusion of solo and ensemble activities as an integral part of their program. Further research is suggested to investigate directors' attitudes within individual states as well as ways to integrate solo and ensemble activities into daily band rehearsals. / Dissertation/Thesis / D.M.A. Music Education 2011

Aujourd’hui, la pédagogie des échanges à distance, s’appuyant sur la communication médiée par les outils numériques, permet de porter un regard nouveau sur les capacités des jeunes apprenants possédant un bagage minimal de la langue cible à interagir à distance avec des locuteurs de la langue partenaire. Inscrite dans un cadre socioconstructiviste et interactionniste, la thèse questionne le potentiel que représentent des projets d’échanges s’élaborant en fonction des personnes et des moyens à disposition. Elle s’appuie sur l’observation de quatre partenariats franco-britanniques initiant un projet sur une année scolaire à l’école élémentaire. Elle cible l’apprentissage de l’anglais (et du français sur le principe de la réciprocité des échanges). Elle cherche à identifier les conceptions et intentions initiales des acteurs. Nous observons sur le terrain ce qui se construit à partir des activités conjointes des enseignants et des élèves (collecte de données à partir de dispositifs variés entrant dans le protocole d’une recherche-action). L’analyse s’effectue à partir de deux hypothèses principales, l’une dirigée vers la dimension sociale des échanges et l’autre vers les effets sur l’apprentissage linguistique. La prise en charge des apprenants de leur apprentissage, la diversité des productions et des aptitudes langagières concernées, la cohérence des activités avec le lien social qui s’instaure ou la présence d’une réflexion métacognitive et métalinguistique sont au nombre des caractéristiques des projets étudiés. Elles conduisent à une réflexion sur l’action et l’apprentissage situé propres à favoriser la collaboration et l’autonomisation. / Today, the pedagogy of distance exchange projects based on mediated digital communication tools allows new insights into the ability of young learners with minimal competence in the target language to interact at a distance with young speakers of that language. Situated within a social constructivist and interactionist framework, the study investigates the potential of exchange projects and how they develop according to the people and resources available. Based on observations of four Franco-British partnership projects undertaken in upper primary school (ages 7-10) over one year, it investigates pupils’ learning of English or French through reciprocal exchange projects. It also seeks to identify the participants’ initial project designs and intentions (through questionnaires and interviews). The results of what transpires through the joint activities of teachers and students are examined (various data collection means were employed according to action research protocol). The data analysis follows two main hypotheses: one directed towards the social dimension of (student) exchanges and the other towards the impact on language learning. Organizational variables, as well as technical-educational, psychological and institutional variables are thus examined. Numerous characteristics of the projects observed emerged including: pupils’ taking responsibility for their learning, diversity of language production and language skills involved, coherence between the activities and the established social ties and evidence of metacognitive and metalinguistic reflection. These lead to consideration of the ways in which situated learn-ing and action foster collaboration and empowerment.

Three Attempts at Time Travel is a piece for wind ensemble that is approximately ten minutes in length. It consists of a brief introduction and three continuous movements based on the same starting material. It is semi-programmatic, but it is not an attempt to depict a specific narrative. Rather, it portrays a scenario involving time travel. The concept of the piece begins with a person who uses a time machine to travel back to a certain point in time to change the result of an event in the their own life. During the piece, the person goes back to the same starting point three times with each “restart” resulting in a different outcome. On the final restart, a positive resolution is reached, but it is ultimately a conflicted ending because it is not the ending that the time traveler was aiming for. At the end of the introduction and each of the first two movements, a “time machine” motive consisting of: a Mahler hammer, a concert bass drum, a drum set, a thunder sheet, a suspended cymbal and a triangle occurs to signal the return to the original point in time.

This piece is five movements for Wind Ensemble. Each movement includes unaccompanied vocal introductions. I have chosen five poems by Sara Teasdale as the text for these introductions. The large ensemble then expands and comments on the themes introduced by the voice. The five Teasdale poems outline a narrative arc partially inspired by the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, but also hopefully encourage the listener to imagine their own story of how one’s view of things changes as new experiences and knowledge change the perspective.

Ensembles have become iconic of the eighteenth-century opera buffa. Previous studies have focused their efforts on form, analyzing ensembles with instrumental structures. However, these forms do not provide information as to how ensemble texts are set musically or function in terms of drama. This study follows Ronald Rabin’s dissertation research on opera buffa performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna between 1783 and 1791. Rabin asserts an ‘ensemble principle’, explaining the broad form of buffa ensembles. This study focuses on the ensembles of two Viennese works: W.A. Mozart’s Così fan tutte (1790) and Domenico Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto (1792). Using Rabin’s ‘ensemble principle’ as a foundation, a close reading of each ensemble from these two works reveals that these composers took very different approaches to ensemble writing. By sticking to or straying from conventions, Mozart and Cimarosa made musical choices that enhance character relationships and drama in diverse ways.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T15:33:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_4163_.pdf: 479699 bytes, checksum: 04f01a137084c0859b4494de6db8b3ac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-23 / Classificadores do tipo máquina de vetores de suporte (SVM) são atualmente considerados uma das técnicas mais poderosas para se resolver problemas de classificação com duas classes. Para aumentar o desempenho alcançado por classificadores SVM individuais, uma abordagem bem estabelecida é usar uma combinação de SVMs, a qual corresponde a um conjunto de classificadores SVMs que são, simultaneamente, individualmente precisos e coletivamente divergentes em suas decisões. Este trabalho propõe uma abordagem para se criar combinações de SVMs, baseada em um processo de três estágios. Inicialmente, são usadas execuções complementares de uma busca baseada em algoritmos genéticos (GEFS), com o objetivo de investigar globalmente o espaço de características para definir um conjunto de subconjuntos de características. Em seguida, para cada um desses subconjuntos de características definidos, uma SVM que usa parâmetros otimizados é construída. Por fim, é empregada uma busca local com o objetivo de selecionar um subconjunto otimizado dessas SVMs, e assim formar a combinação de SVMs que é finalmente produzida. Os experimentos foram realizados num contexto de detecção de defeitos em máquinas industriais. Foram usados 2000 exemplos de sinais de vibração de moto bombas instaladas em plataformas de petróleo. Os experimentos realizados mostram que o método proposto para se criar combinação de SVMs apresentou um desempenho superior em comparação a outras abordagens de classificação bem estabelecidas.

Explorations is a three-movement experimental work for eighteen-piece jazz ensemble consisting of the following instruments: soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, two tenor saxophones, baritone saxophone, two trumpets, two flugelhorns, three trombones, bass trombone, electric guitar, vibraphone, contrabass, drums and piano. The duration of the work will approximate twelve minutes. The first movement features geometric configurations of spatially notated sound which emphasize percussive qualities of the ensemble (i.e. key clicks, tongue slaps, mouthpiece pops, etc.). Tone clusters of various pitch, texture and dynamics derived from blues scales provide the source material for the second movement. A slowly developing dynamic counterpoint creates the sound mass texture and delineates the form. Movement Three features a contrapuntal poly-metric collage of variations on a four-note theme. The collage provides the background fabric for an exchange of periodic and aperiodic events.

Master of Science / Statistics / Christopher Vahl / When exploring data, predictive analytics techniques have proven to be effective. In this report, the efficiency of several predictive analytics methods are explored. During the time of this study, Kaggle.com, a data science competition website, had the predictive modeling competition, "Titanic: Machine Learning from Disaster" available. This competition posed a classification problem to build a predictive model to predict the survival of passengers on the RMS Titanic. The focus of our approach was on applying a traditional classification and regression tree algorithm. The algorithm is greedy and can over fit the training data, which consequently can yield non-optimal prediction accuracy. In efforts to correct such issues with using the classification and regression tree algorithm, we have implemented cost complexity pruning and ensemble methods such as bagging and random forests. However, no improvement was observed here which may be an artifact associated with the Titanic data and may not be representative of those methods’ performances. The decision trees and prediction accuracy of each method are presented and compared. Results indicate that the predictors sex/title, fare price, age, and passenger class are the most important variables in predicting survival of the passengers.