Compulsory education and school laws were enacted in the British colonies of North America beginning from the 1640s. Compulsory school laws were gradually enacted in all states of the United States of America between 1852 and 1918, with enforcement of the laws following gradually and but unevenly in the various states. Today, most states require attendance up to age 16. Music was gradually introduced to the elementary school curriculum from the 1830s. Today, music is mandatory for all (general) students in Grades 1-6 in most schools and in some schools in Grades 7-8, and is an elective subject in most schools in Grades 7-12. General music classes in the U.S. are similar to compulsory music classes in many other countries. Approximately 25 percent of American public secondary school students participate in elective music performing ensembles, which are a distinctive and positive feature of American music education.

Panama disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense infection on banana is devastating banana plantations worldwide. Biological control has been proposed to suppress Panama disease, though the stability and survival of bio-control microorganisms in field setting is largely unknown. In order to develop a bio-control strategy for this disease, 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used to assess the microbial community of a disease-suppressive soil. Bacillus was identified as the dominant bacterial group in the suppressive soil. For this reason, B. amyloliquefaciens NJN-6 isolated from the suppressive soil was selected as a potential bio-control agent. A bioorganic fertilizer (BIO), formulated by combining this isolate with compost, was applied in nursery pots to assess the bio-control of Panama disease. Results showed that BIO significantly decreased disease incidence by 68.5%, resulting in a doubled yield. Moreover, bacterial community structure was significantly correlated to disease incidence and yield and Bacillus colonization was negatively correlated with pathogen abundance and disease incidence, but positively correlated to yield. In total, the application of BIO altered the rhizo-bacterial community by establishing beneficial strains that dominated the microbial community and decreased pathogen colonization in the banana rhizosphere, which plays an important role in the management of Panama disease.

Europeans took their musical traditions with them when they moved to North America. Eventually, however, the United States became so large and diverse, with such deep democratic roots, that different ethnic musical strands emerged and then combined to form important new forms of popular music. By then electronic playback technology had arisen and the United States had become the most influential country in the world, both of which helped propel one of these new popular musics, rock and roll, throughout much of the world, much like Europe and its music dominated and proliferated during what musicians call the common practice period. Today, music teachers in the United States continue to be trained in the European-based art music tradition, but most of their work consists of teaching an array of musical styles to students of every imaginable ethnicity and background. These music educators tend to have dual professional identities: as classical musicians and as teachers of multiple styles of music.

||При преместването си в Северна Америка европейците взели със себе си и музикалните си традиции. В крайна сметка, обаче, Съединените щати дотолкова се разраснали и били различни – с дълбоки демократични корени, - че се появили различни музикални течения, а впоследствие се съчетали така, че да образуват нови форми на популярна музика. Към него момент технологията за електронен плейбек вече била развита и САЩ стават най-влиятелната страна в света, като тези два фактора помогнали за напредъка на един от тези нови популярни музикални жанрове – рокендролът – из по-големия дял на музикалния свят, до голяма степен по начина, по който Европа и нейната музика доминира и процъфтява по време на т.нар. от музикантите период на общата практика (common practice period). Днес учителите по музика в САЩ продължават да бъдат обучавани според базираната в Европа традиция на художествената музика, но в по-голямата си част работата им се състои от преподаване на студентите на спектър от музикални стилове от всяка етничност и произход, които можем да си представим. Тези музикални педагози обикновено имат двойствена професионална идентичност: те са класически музиканти и учители по множество музикални стилове.

Critical flicker fusion thresholds (CFFTs) describe when quick amplitude modulations of a light source become undetectable as the frequency of the modulation increases and are thought to underlie a number of visual processing skills, including reading. Here, we compare the impact of two vision-training approaches, one involving contrast sensitivity training and the other directional dot-motion training, compared to an active control group trained on Sudoku. The three training paradigms were compared on their effectiveness for altering CFFT. Directional dot-motion and contrast sensitivity training resulted in significant improvement in CFFT, while the Sudoku group did not yield significant improvement. This finding indicates that dot-motion and contrast sensitivity training similarly transfer to effect changes in CFFT. The results, combined with prior research linking CFFT to high-order cognitive processes such as reading ability, and studies showing positive impact of both dot-motion and contrast sensitivity training in reading, provide a possible mechanistic link of how these different training approaches impact reading abilities.

Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a serious lifelong condition, its underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. Recently, neuroimaging-based classifiers for ASD and typically developed (TD) individuals were developed to identify the abnormality of functional connections (FCs). Due to over-fitting and interferential effects of varying measurement conditions and demographic distributions, no classifiers have been strictly validated for independent cohorts. Here we overcome these difficulties by developing a novel machine-learning algorithm that identifies a small number of FCs that separates ASD versus TD. The classifier achieves high accuracy for a Japanese discovery cohort and demonstrates a remarkable degree of generalization for two independent validation cohorts in the USA and Japan. The developed ASD classifier does not distinguish individuals with major depressive disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder from their controls but moderately distinguishes patients with schizophrenia from their controls. The results leave open the viable possibility of exploring neuroimaging-based dimensions quantifying the multiple-disorder spectrum.

Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as visual performance improvement after visual experiences. VPL is often highly specific for a visual feature presented during training. Such specificity is observed in behavioral tuning function changes with the highest improvement centered on the trained feature and was originally thought to be evidence for changes in the early visual system associated with VPL. However, results of neurophysiological studies have been highly controversial concerning whether the plasticity underlying VPL occurs within the visual cortex. The controversy may be partially due to the lack of observation of neural tuning function changes in multiple visual areas in association with VPL. Here using human subjects we systematically compared behavioral tuning function changes after global motion detection training with decoded tuning function changes for 8 visual areas using pattern classification analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals. We found that the behavioral tuning function changes were extremely highly correlated to decoded tuning function changes only in V3A, which is known to be highly responsive to global motion with human subjects. We conclude that VPL of a global motion detection task involves plasticity in a specific visual cortical area.

Text of paper presented at the first conference of the Greek Society for Music Education, held in Thessaloniki, Greece on June 26-28, 1998. It was one of a pair of papers presented as the Honor Guest Lecturer Addresses (the other being "Music Education in the U.S.A.: An Overview"). This item includes the English and Greek translations of the work.