In 1949, Wittkower proposed that musical harmonic ratios were a principle underlying Palladio's designs illustrated in the ground plans of Book II of the Quattro libri. This theory, expounded in Part IV of Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, has been widely accepted, despite the fact that his research was based on detailed analysis of only 8 of the 44 plans in Book II. In the present study, a systematic, quantitative analysis of all the plans in Book II of the Quattro libri is carried out to discover to what extent musical harmonic ratios were an important principle behind Palladio's ground plans. Our results show that Palladio did indeed have a definite preference for numbers which can be related in ratios corresponding to the standard musical intervals. However, he does not make any consistent attempt to render his designs completely harmonic. Only about two-thirds of all the dimensions in the Book II plans are numbers which can be incorporated into musical ratios. Palladio often made no attempt to make his published measurements accord with musical harmonies where this could have been done by minor alterations, such as insignificant changes in wall thicknesses. The actual buildings, too, show a preference for dimensions which can be related by harmonic ratios, although not quite to the extent of the plans published in the Quattro libri. A few, most notably the Villa Barbaro at Maser, are significantly more "harmonic" in the published versions than in reality. In view of Daniele Barbaro's well-known interest in harmonic proportion, it is significant that all the completely harmonic designs postdate Palladio's collaboration with Barbaro on the Vitruvius edition and the Villa at Maser. Most of the patrons of those designs closely based upon musical harmonies appear to have shared an interest in musical or architectural theory. While Palladio almost certainly used musical theory in some later designs, his dependence on musical harmonic proportion was by no means as great as Wittkower implied. Elsewhere, his preference for harmonic dimensions probably resulted either from his use of certain favorite room shapes, or from the practical advantages of using simple, easily divisible numbers.

No abstract

Public program reforms in the 1980s have substantially increased the numbers of poor pregnant women potentially eligible for Medicaid coverage. Structural deficiencies in the Medicaid program, together with inadequate arrangements in managed-care plans, however, have not led to generally acceptable levels of maternity care. Demonstration projects indicate that Medicaid can be modified cost effectively to underwrite early, continuous, and comprehensive care delivery. Recommendations are suggested for eligibility guarantees, enrollment safeguards, benefit and treatment protocols, provider recruitment, quality control, and sufficient payment rates to overcome barriers to adequate levels of material health care.

Once described by the great Venetian art historian Giuseppe Fiocco as a colossal suq, the city of Venice has always conveyed a distinctly oriental atmosphere to the western european visitor. Mystified by its labyrinth of dark, narrow, often dead-end streets, twisting at right-angles through densely built-up, separately demarcated parishes, glimpsing fragrant gardens hidden behind high, crenellated walls, sniffing the pungent odours of exotic oriental spices in the bustling, crowded markets, the traveller might well have imagined himself transported, as if on a magic carpet, to one of the great mercantile centres of the Middle East — to Baghdad, Cairo or Damascus — to the world of Marco Polo’s travels or the Arabian Nights.

Writer's checklist, a self-regulation strategy, provides an avenue for students and teachers to direct, monitor, and regulate actions toward experiencing a sense of control and meeting writing goals.A s writing teachers, we know that composing a text independently is a challenging task for students of varying levels of learning, including high-performing, typically achieving, and struggling writers. However, students who struggle with writing often find it overwhelming to meet the multiple demands of the writing task, sometimes losing focus as they try to keep up with the writing process. These students may balk, saying they have no idea what to write about or how to proceed with the writing task (writer's block). They tend to lack selfregulation strategies to keep themselves on task with limited teacher supervision. The use of procedural facilitators helps students develop higher levels of self-regulation.Writing is a multifaceted cognitive task that requires students to interact with texts and juggle varying levels of complexity. This takes a toll on students' working memory (e.g., thought processes that occur while completing a writing task) because of the metacognitive demands of writing (McCutchen, 2011). The writing process-planning, drafting, revising, and editing-helps support students as writing demands advance, requiring them to create increasingly complex texts (Fayol & Lete, 2012;Hayes, 2012).To facilitate the writing process, working memory needs to be supported. Scaffolding students' writing using procedural facilitators such as checklists supports students' working memory and helps them self-regulate their writing process effectively.