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Monteverdi VESPERS of 1610

Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespro della Beata Vergine” that sets the high point in early Baroque sacred music.  It is a collection of liturgical pieces — psalms, hymns, and motets — all set to Latin texts.

Monteverdi employs a variety of musical forms and textures, from expansive polychoral settings that exploit the spatial possibilities of the church interior, to intimate solo passages and intricate instrumental ritornellos. The Vespers also integrate elements of secular music, such as dance rhythms and dramatic vocal lines, highlighting Monteverdi’s innovative approach to sacred composition.

Notable sections include the “Dixit Dominus,” with its choral and instrumental interplay, and the “Magnificat,” which concludes the Vespers with a triumphant affirmation of faith.

Monteverdi’s Vespers are celebrated for their emotional depth, technical brilliance, and their role in bridging the Renaissance and Baroque musical eras.

History of Western Civilization Told Through the Acoustics of its Worship Spaces


“Abide with Me”

 

 

Henry Francis Lyte  1847

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word,
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terror, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile,
And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee.
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

History of Western Civilization Told Through the Acoustics of its Worship Spaces

Sir Roger Scruton: The Classical Tradition Today

Engineering a Fair Future: Why we need to train unbiased AI

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a group of technology luminaries, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba. The organization was created with the goal of developing advanced artificial intelligence technologies in a way that is safe and beneficial for humanity.  It is written in multiple programming languages, but the primary language used to build the model is Python but relies on a range of other software tools and frameworks, including TensorFlow and PyTorch for training and deploying the deep learning models, and various libraries for data preprocessing and postprocessing, such as spaCy, NLTK, and Transformers.

Since its founding, OpenAI has grown to become one of the world’s leading AI research organizations, with a team of hundreds of researchers and engineers working on a wide range of projects in areas such as natural language processing, robotics, computer vision, and more.  Much like humans, ChatGPT will likely struggle negotiating “bias”.  As of this posting it seems clear that the algorithm produces answers that are biased toward large central government; most likely the result of not having enough historical input about how a smaller central government is largely responsible for inventing it.

Software Engineering Ethics Education

print(“Python”)

Manifesto for Software Development

Cambridge Center for Smart Infrastructure & Construction

“Clare Hall and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam” / Joseph Mallord William Turner (1793)

 

Smart Infrastructure: Getting More From Strategic Assets

Dr Jennifer Schooling, Director of CSIC

Dr Ajith Parlikad, CSIC Co-Investigator and Senior Lecturer

Mark Enzer, Global Water Sector Leader

Mott MacDonald; Keith Bowers, Principal Tunnel Engineer, London Underground

Ross Dentten, Asset Information and Configuration Manager, Crossrail

Matt Edwards, Asset Maintenance and Information Manager, Anglian Water Services

Jerry England, Group Digital Railway Director, Network Rail

Volker Buscher, Director, Arup Digital

 

Smart Infrastructure is a global opportunity worth £2trn-4.8trn. The world is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution due to the rapid development of technologies and digital abundance.

Smart Infrastructure involves applying this to economic infrastructure for the benefit of all stakeholders. It will allow owners and operators to get more out of what they already have, increasing capacity, efficiency and resilience and improving services.

It brings better performance at lower cost. Gaining more from existing assets is the key to enhancing service provision despite constrained finance and growing resource scarcity. It will often be more cost-effective to add to the overall value of mature infrastructure via digital enhancements than by physical enhancements – physical enhancements add `more of the same’, whereas digital enhancements can transform the existing as well.

Smart Infrastructure will shape a better future. Greater understanding of the performance of our infrastructure will allow new infrastructure to be designed and delivered more efficiently and to provide better whole-life value.

Data is the key – the ownership of it and the ability to understand and act on it. Industry, organisations and professionals need to be ready to adjust in order to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. Early adopters stand to gain the most benefit. Everyone in the infrastructure sector has a choice as to how fast they respond to the changes that Smart Infrastructure will bring. But everyone will be affected.

Change is inevitable. Progress is optional. Now is the time for the infrastructure industry to choose to be Smart.

 

LEARN MORE:

Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction


Perspective: Since this paper is general in its recommendations, we provide examples of specific campus infrastructure data points that are difficult, if not impossible, to identify and “make smart” — either willfully, for lack of funding, for lack of consensus, for lack of understanding or leadership:

    1. Maintenance of the digital location of fire dampers in legacy buildings or even new buildings mapped with BIM.  Doors and ceiling plenums are continually being modified and the As-Built information is usually not accurate.  This leads to fire hazard and complicates air flow and assuring occupant temperature preferences (i.e. uncontrollable hot and cold spots) 
    2. Ampere readings of feeder breakers downstream from the electric service main.  The power chain between the service substation and the end-use equipment is a “no-man’s land” in research facilities that everyone wants to meter but few ever recover the cost of the additional metering.
    3. Optimal air flow rates in hospitals and commercial kitchens that satisfies both environmental air hazards and compartmentalized air pressure zones for fire safety.
    4. Identification of students, staff and faculty directly affiliated with the campus versus visitors to the campus.
    5. Standpipe pressure variations in municipal water systems
    6. Pinch points in municipal sewer systems in order to avoid building flooding.
    7. How much of university data center cost should be a shared (gateway) cost, and how much should be charged to individual academic and business units?
    8. Should “net-zero” energy buildings be charged for power generated at the university central heating and electric generation plant?
    9. How much staff parking should be allocated to academic faculty versus staff that supports the healthcare delivery enterprises; which in many cases provides more revenue to the university than the academic units?
    10. Finally, a classical conundrum in facility management spreadsheets: Can we distinguish between maintenance cost (which should be covered under an O&M budget) and capital improvement cost (which can be financed by investors)

 

 

Emergency sound systems at sports venues

University of Bolton Lancashire

A rare find in best practice literature is a title that slices horizontally through a number of “silos” owned by US-based domain incumbents such as NFPA, ICC, IEEE and others.  Several occupancy classifications run interstitially and present challenging risk aggregations–similarly recognized in the EU–when 100,000 people must be put out of harms way in less than 60 seconds.  One such title is Code of Practice: BS 7827 Designing, specifying, maintaining and operating emergency sound systems for sports grounds, large public buildings, and venues.  From the project prospectus:

Maintenance, Emergency measures, Safety devices, Reports, Crowd safety, Certification (approval), Inspection, Audio systems, Forms (paper), Speech transmission systems, Reliability, Instructions for use, Personnel, Sound intensity, Approval testing, Training, Audio equipment, Performance, Stadia, Warning devices, Electric power systems, Alarm systems, Signal distortion, Sports facilities, Safety measures, Public-address systems, Audibility, Acoustic measurement, Reception, Sound reproduction, Buildings, Control panels

The current 2019 Edition was released October 2019 and is assumed to be stable.  You can tell by the list of normative references from European Union standards developers that event safety is an established discipline and one that requires continual attention despite the circumstances of the pandemic.

Michigan Stadium is the largest university-owned sports venue in the world. with nominal seating capacity of 110,000 and auxiliary enterprises that add another 20,000.

More information about how our colleagues may contribute to the development of future revisions to this titles should communicate directly with BSI Group Technical Committee EPL/100.  We collaborate with European Union electrotechnical professionals through the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets online 4 times monthly in European and American time zones.

We maintain this title on the standing agenda of our Sport and Global colloquia.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue:[19-158]

Category: Sport, Global, Information & Communications Technology, Life Safety

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Mike Hiler

 

 

 

 

Top Deck View

University of Bath: Department of Estates

BSI Group Standards Catalog

BSI Group Standards Catalog

*After the Roman period, Bath remained a small town until the 18th century, when it became a fashionable spa destination for the wealthy. The architect John Wood the Elder designed much of the city’s Georgian architecture, including the famous Royal Crescent and the Circus. Bath also played an important role in the English literary scene, as several famous authors, including Jane Austen, lived and wrote in the city.   During the 19th century, Bath’s popularity declined as other spa towns became fashionable. In the 20th century, the city experienced significant redevelopment and preservation efforts, including the restoration of its Roman baths and the construction of a new spa complex.

Today, Bath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist destination known for its historical and cultural significance.

Ubi Caritas et Amor

“Tradition is the democracy of the dead”

— G.K. Chesterton


History of Western Civilization Told Through the Acoustics of its Worship Spaces

Other sacred compositions by Maurice Duruflé:

  1. Requiem, Op. 9: Duruflé’s “Requiem” is his most renowned composition. It incorporates the Gregorian Chant melodies for the “Dies Irae” and “In Paradisum” sections. While not hymns in the traditional sense, these chants are significant components of the Catholic liturgy.
  2. Four Motets on Gregorian Themes, Op. 10: In this choral composition, Duruflé takes inspiration from Gregorian Chant and includes pieces such as “Ubi caritas et amor” and “Tota pulchra es.” These are not hymns but rather choral settings of Latin liturgical texts.
  3. Fugue on the Theme of the “Carillon des Heures de la Cathédrale de Soissons”: This composition for organ is based on a hymn-like theme, although it is not a hymn in the traditional sense. It showcases Duruflé’s skill as an organist and composer.
  4. Prelude on the Introit of the Epiphany (for organ): Duruflé composed this piece for organ, incorporating the Gregorian Chant “O Lux Beata Trinitas,” which is associated with the Epiphany in the liturgical calendar.

Solar Panels on King’s College Chapel Roof

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