Acquiring nonverbal skills necessary to appropriately communicate and educate members of performing ensembles is essential for wind band conductors. Virtual reality learning environments (VRLEs) provide a unique setting for developing these proficiencies. For this feasibility study, we used an augmented immersive VRLE to enhance eye contact, torso movement, and gestures of novice wind band conductors. Ten undergraduates randomly assigned to no VRLE (n = 3), VRLE with head tracking (n = 4), or VRLE without (n = 3) head tracking received eight treatment sessions over a 4-week period. While participants conducted a live ensemble, their eye contact, torso movements, and gestures were measured. A comparison of pretest and posttest scores showed that students using the augmented immersive VRLE with head tracking demonstrated greater conducting skill improvement than those not using virtual reality.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pitch and rhythm priming tasks on sight-reading accuracy and fluency. High school wind instrumentalists ( N = 182) were assigned to one of four experimental groups: pre-/posttest rhythm, pre-/posttest pitch, posttest-only rhythm, or posttest-only pitch. Participants sight-read selected stimulus exercises from the Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale and completed two priming treatments and a control condition as part of a repeated-measures design. A three-way repeated-measures MANOVA, with rhythm accuracy, pitch accuracy, and fluency accuracy as dependent measures, revealed a significant main effect due to priming condition. Rhythm accuracy scores were significantly lower after both perceptual and conceptual priming than after a control condition. No significant differences in pitch accuracy or fluency existed based on priming condition. No significant differences were found in rhythm, pitch, or fluency accuracy based on treatment condition (pitch or rhythm) or exposure condition (pre-/posttest or post only). Two-way repeated-measures MANOVAs revealed significant main effects based on time. Pitch accuracy and fluency each significantly improved between pre- and posttest and from the first to third study tasks. Results suggest that performing rhythm alone or pitch alone requires different cognitive processes than does performing both together.

Virtually immersive environments incorporate the use of various computer modelling and simulation techniques enabling geographically dispersed virtual project teams to interact within an artificially projected threedimensional space online. This study focused on adoption of virtually immersive technologies as a collaborative media to support virtual teaming of both graduate and undergraduate-level project management students. The data and information from this study has implications for educators using virtually immersive environments in the classroom. In this study, we specifically evaluated two key components in this paper: 1) students' level of trust and; 2) students' willingness to use the technology, along with their belief about the virtual environment's ability to extend and improve knowledge sharing in their team work environment. We learned that while students did find the environment a positive add on for working collaboratively, there were students who were neither more nor less likely to use the technology for future collaborative ventures. Most of the students who were not very positive about the environment were "fence sitters" likely indicating needs related to additional training to improve communication skills. Finally, based on the full study results we have provided basic recommendations designed to support team trust building in the system along with interpersonal trust building to facilitate knowledge transfer and better strategic us of the technology.

Special Agent William Queen, with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), received a phone call that changed his life and began a 2-year investigation into the deepest recesses of one of the most violent and dangerous outlaw motorcycles gangs on the streets today. William Queen had a confidential informant willing to introduce him into the Mongol motorcycle gang based in San Fernando Valley, California. Through a series of strong police work, crises, accidents, and odd twists of fate, Queen went from being a prospect in the Mongols' club to actually being inducted as a full-fledged member of the notorious gang. Agent Queen's rise in the ranks didn't stop at full member however, and he eventually rose to the rank of secretary-treasurer for the chapter.Although this book is a mainstream account of Queen's undercover operation, one, according to Queen, that ended up being the most extensive undercover operation into the violent world of outlaw bikers in the history of federal law enforcement, it provides a valuable glimpse into the significant structure and governance of an organized criminal operation. The Mongols engaged in everything from drug smuggling and sales to motorcycle theft and illegal gun sales. Queen's experience reveals who these outlaws really are, what rules they play by, and exactly how and why they are so dangerous to the communities in which they operate. Outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Mongols are like any large-scale organized criminal operation, violent and without remorse for the people and society on which they prey. This is a chronological portrayal of Queen's sometimes surprising, sometimes frightening infiltration of the Mongols Nation. Queen begins the book by describing his first contacts with a confidential informant-a woman who is willing to introduce Queen into the Mongols organization as a simple matter of revenge. Queen describes his first meeting early in the book this way: Within a few minutes a pick-up truck rolled into the parking lot. It was old, dirty, banged up, reflecting no pride of ownership. . . . But what rolled out of the truck was two hundred pounds of bleached-blond tweaker that could neither stand still nor shut up. "Tweaker" is cop vernacular for a methamphetamine addict . . . .

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