University researchers are using advanced tools of music technology to unlock the secrets of blue notes – those notes “between the cracks” of conventional pitches that help define a great singer in the tradition of jazz, rock, or blues.

“As musicians, we’re always taught there is an octave divided into twelve pitches,” says David Temperley,  a professor of music theory at the Eastman School. “Now we’re finding evidence that it’s not so simple, and that people sometimes deliberately fall between one pitch or another for expressive effect.”

In order to study blue notes, Temperley, along with his colleagues Iris Ren, a PhD student in electrical and computer engineering, and Zhiyao Duan, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, examined recordings of famous rock songs containing only the vocal lines.

“Our role on the engineering side was to design algorithms and use automatic pitch tracking software to extract and analyze the pitches within the vocal tracks,” Duan says.

The researchers then examined the pitches in the context of the entire song to determine whether the tuning deviated from conventional pitches of the chromatic scale and whether these deviations seemed to occur in intentional ways.

They found that, for the most part, a singer like Michael Jackson hits chromatic scale notes quite precisely, but there are a few cases where he lands right in the middle between two notes.

“Interestingly, these seem to be exactly the cases where musical factors seem to be pulling in two directions,” Temperley says. “For example, if it’s a cadence [the end of a phrase], that might favor the major third note of the scale, but if the melody is descending, that might favor the minor third. That’s the kind of situation where Jackson might hit a blue note, midway between the major and minor third.”

A new study shows that early experiences of environmental harshness, in combination with personal temperament, can shape the child’s problem-solving abilities later in life.

Children growing up in poverty with unengaged caregivers are more likely to do poorly on standardized assessments. However, the researchers found, those children who exhibited higher levels of so-called hawk traits at age two became better at using problem-solving skills to obtain a blocked reward.

Hawk traits describe heightened levels of aggression, boldness, and dominant behavior in toddlerhood.

By the time they were preschoolers, these high-risk children with hawk traits performed worse on a standardized visual problem-solving task with low motivational significance, but did significantly better on problem-solving tasks if rewards were involved.

The study, conducted at the University’s Mt. Hope Family Center, was recently published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Using an evolutionary perspective, the study addresses questions about how and why stressful environments and children’s temperament may interact to shape children’s cognition.

“Our study supports emerging views that early environmental experience, in combination with temperament characteristics, shape children’s cognitive functioning to focus on what is most salient in their environments,” says lead author Jennifer Suor ’19, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology. Read more here.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first treatment to show significant, lasting results for adults whose lives are disrupted by moderate to severe eczema or atopic dermatitis (AD). The Medical Center was involved in all phases of testing for the drug, spanning nearly seven years.

“This is a watershed moment for the treatment of patients with AD, some of whom have been suffering for decades with intractable itch and extensive skin disease,” says Lisa A. Beck,  Dean’s Professor of Dermatology and a leading researcher in clinical trials of the new drug. “Until now, we’ve had nothing new to offer patients with this level of disease. This is a real game-changer for them.”

Dupilumab, a biologic drug given by injection, blocks two proteins involved in allergic inflammation that plays a key role in AD. It will be marketed as Dupixent.

Read more here.

The River Campus Libraries and the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley (GAGV) have been awarded a NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundation grant to create a pilot project that will preserve and provide wider access to a significant collection of documents focused on the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights movement in the Rochester area.

The collection, which includes born-digital oral histories, early radio programs, photographs, videotapes, newsletters, and corporate papers from GAGV archives, brings to light the individuals, organizations, and institutions that supported the early struggle for gay rights in Rochester.

These materials represent the “lived experience” of the Rochester LGBTQ community across several disciplines and fields of study including American LGBTQ social and political history; drag culture and entertainment; the hidden lives of the crossdresser and transgender community; the use of radio broadcast media in political organizing in the ‘70s; and noteworthy activities and contributions to the social reform and liberation movements in New York State.

The project aims to secure these important archival materials in the River Campus Libraries digital repository, and make them broadly accessible through the Digital Public Library of America.

Read more here.

Fabeha Fazal, assistant professor of pediatrics and neonatology at Golisano Children’s Hospital, has received a 4-year, $1.9 million grant to identify viable therapies that will limit acute lung injury (ALI).

ALI is a major cause of respiratory failure in critically ill patients and is responsible for approximately 75,000 deaths annually. ALI occurs when capillary-alveolar barriers in the lung are disrupted, resulting in a variety of dangerous symptoms that can lead to respiratory failure. Currently, there is no treatment for ALI, which has a mortality rate between 25 and 40 percent.

However, Fazal’s research has shown that the endoplasmic reticulum chaperone protein BiP (binding immunoglobulin protein) and mitochondrial chaperone mortalin play a role in ALI due to their ability to promote inflammation and capillary barrier disruption.

Inhibiting both proteins in tandem can protect against ALI. Fazal’s current study aims to understand how BiP and mortalin control the proinflammatory and leaky phenotype of the lung, and potentially understand and develop a therapy that targets these proteins. Early results have shown promise.

Her research team includes co-principal investigator Arshad Rahman, and co-investigators David Dean, Michael O’Reilly, Minsoo Kim, and David Yule.

Bette London, professor of English, will hold a Bridging Fellowship to the Humanities Center this fall and Jonathan Baldo, professor of English in the Humanities Department at the Eastman School of Music, will bridge to the center in spring 2018.

The fellowships were announced by Joan Shelley Rubin, the Ani & Mark Gabrellian Director of the Humanities Center, in her weekly update.

The Bridging Fellowship program is a University-wide effort to support University faculty members in interdisciplinary study. The program releases members from departmental obligations for one semester to allow them to move to another part of the University for the purpose of learning aspects of another discipline.

Bridging Fellowships are for study in an area that is peripheral to the fellow’s central professional concern, permitting the acquisition of knowledge and methods in a different field. These fellowships are thus distinct from academic leaves, and holding a Bridging Fellowship does not affect subsequent consideration for such leaves.

Daniel Sidor, Optics, “Surface Conduction in III-V Semiconductor Infrared Detector Materials.” 2 p.m. April 10, 2017. Gavett 301. Advisor: Gary Wicks.

Siegred Alan Baluyot, Mathematics, “On Zeros of Riemann’s Zeta-Function.” 1 p.m., April 11, 2017. Hylan 1106A. Advisor: Steven Gonek.

Xuan Sun, Optics, “Resonance-Enhanced Nonlinear Optical Effects.” 2 p.m., April 11, 2017. Gavett 301. Advisor: Xi-Cheng Zhang.

Fan Ge, Mathematics, “On Zeros of the Derivative of the Riemann Zeta-Function.” 3 p.m., April 11, 2017. Hylan 1106A. Advisor: Steven Gonek.

Timothy Kopp, Computer Science, “Symmetry Exploitation for Inference in Relational Theories.” 10:30 a.m., April 12, 2017. CSB 703. Advisor: Henry Kautz.

Susanna Supalla, Political Science, “Money and Elections: The Flow of Funds through the Federal Campaign System.” 2 p.m., April 13, 2017. Harkness 112. Advisor: Lawrence Rothenberg.

Today: “Innate Allergy?” Keynote address by Richard Locksley ’76, professor of infectious disease and director of the Strategic Asthma Basic Research Center at University of California, San Francisco. Medical Scientist Research Symposium. 3-4:30 p.m. Class of ’62 Auditorium. The Medical Scientist Research Symposium showcases the research and scientific accomplishments of the University’s Medical Scientist Training Program, and also includes luncheon and student oral presentations at noon in the auditorium, and poster sessions at 1:30 and 2:15 p.m. in the Flaum Atrium. Click here for more  information.

April 10: Deadline to apply for pilot and feasibility awards offered by the Schmitt Program in Integrative Neuroscience (SPIN), in conjunction with the Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. Click here for more information and to download the RFA.

April 10-14: Registration open for Three-Minute Thesis Competition. For more information, visit cpd.urmc.edu/3MT.

April 13: CEIS (Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences) Technology Showcase. Researchers share their work in optics, imaging and photonics, energy and materials, biomedical technology, and IP with industry professionals. 1 to 5 p.m., Doubletree Hotel, 1111 Jefferson Road. Free and open to the public. Register online.

April 19: Feng Zhang, the first scientist to successfully adapt CRISPR-Cas9 for genome editing in eukaryotic cells, will give two talks at the Medical Center. “Exploration of CRISPR Diversity: from Microbiology to Biotechnology,” 1 to 3 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium (G-9425), Graduate Student NIH T32 Retreat in Cellular, Biochemical and Molecular Sciences. “From the Beginning: How I Came to CRISPR,” 3:15 to 4:15 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium (G-9425), Graduate Women in Science seminar series.

April 20: Seminar on new NIH requirements that multi-site grant submissions with human subject research use a single Institutional Review Board (sIRB). Office for Human Subject Protection. Noon, Helen Wood Hall Auditorium.

April 24: One-day conference examining racial and ethnic disparities in health care and research, hosted by the Medical Center’s Office for Inclusion and Culture Development and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Flaum Atrium. Click here for the agenda and registration.

April 26: “Precision Medicine: Notre Dame’s Bold Initiative to Lead the 21st Century Revolution in Personalized Care.” Presented by Paul Bohn, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, University of Notre Dame. Hesburgh Lecture, sponsored by Notre Dame Club of Rochester and Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. 7 p.m., Adolph Auditorium, Medical Center.

May 1: Deadline to apply for Clinical and Translational Science Institute Population Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship.

May 12: Technology & Rare Neurological Diseases Symposium, 7:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Helen Wood Hall Auditorium. Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics. Patients, patient advocates, clinical research policy and regulatory experts, and researchers from academia, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries will brainstorm ways to apply novel mobile health technologies to rare neurological diseases. Register here; learn more on the TRNDS website.

May 15: Deadline for submitting applications for population health pilot projects supported by the Department of Public Health Science. Learn more…

May 22: Deadline to apply for research awards from the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences to collaborate with New York state companies on projects in ophthalmic and vision science, fiber optic communications, biomedical imaging, geospatial imaging, precision optics, consumer imaging and displays. Click here to learn more.