The difficulties associated with measuring the complex construct of musicianship have received considerable attention in the music psychology literature. Multiple measures exist for various constructs, yet the need for the careful replication and documentation of the use of these measures remains an area of critical importance. Here, we describe the replication of the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) in a sample of 346 university students, drawn from both a school of music and a department of psychology. The original approach to modeling the Gold-MSI was followed as closely as possible, and the results replicated well overall. Issues were noted, however, with the characteristics of the sample, the skew of some of the individual items, and the overall use of the bifactor structure. These findings are discussed in relation to the state of measuring musicianship in the current literature, as well as in relation to the larger theoretical concerns surrounding the modeling of complex psychological and musical constructs.

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A recombinant virus vector constructed from adeno-associated virus (AAV) that has been altered to carry the human alpha1-antitrypsin (hAAT) gene expressed from a hybrid chicken beta-actin promoter with a cytomegalovirus enhancer has been developed. The construct has been shown to initiate the production of hAAT in animal models closely matching the proposed human trial. The proposed clinical trial is an open-label, phase I study administering recombinant adeno-associated virus alpha1-antitrypsin (rAAV2-CB-hAAT) gene vector intramuscularly to AAT-deficient human subjects where gene expression can be measured directly in blood samples to assess safety. Safety parameters will be measurement of changes in serum chemistries and hematology, urinalysis, pulmonary function testing, semen assay for vector genomes, immunologic response to AAT, and AAV, as well as reported subject history of any symptoms.

This data report introduces the MeloSol corpus, a collection of 783 Western, tonal monophonic melodies. I first begin by describing the overall structure of the corpus, then proceed to detail its contents as they would be helpful for researchers working in the field of computational musicology or music psychology. In order to contextualize the MeloSol corpus in relation to other corpora in the literature, I present descriptive statistics of the MeloSol corpus alongside the The Densmore Collection of Native American Song and The Essen Folk Song Collection. I suggest possible future uses of this corpus including extending research investigating Western tonality, perceptual experiments needing novel ecological stimuli, or work involving the musical generation of monophonic melodies in the style of Western tonal music.

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