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This chapter explores the conceptual bases for the discrepancy between species’ potential geographic distributional areas and their occupied distributional areas, focusing on the case of conditions when the Eltonian Noise Hypothesis is true as well as the necessary modifications when it is not. It first considers the meaning of the potential distributional area and the reasons why an ecological niche model may not estimate it correctly. It then explains why a species may not be at equilibrium with its potential distributional area, but rather inhabits only some subset of areas suitable for it. It also discusses nonequilibrium distributions that may arise in terms of the BAM diagram before concluding with an analysis of procedures for further processing of a niche model, which expresses potential geographic distributional area, to yield an estimate of occupied distributional area.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, there emerged an increasingly prevalent literary trope of a sound that cannot (or should not) be heard. This trope had its correlates in contemporary science and astrophysics, where the universe’s ‘background hum’ was conceptualized to make sense of the persistent radio static that scanners had made audible for the first time. But it also had a background in the literary tradition: Keats’ ‘spirit ditties of no tone’, Kleist’s ‘St Cecelia’s Day’, even the plugging of the oarsmen’s ears in Homer’s Odyssey. This chapter considers the proliferation of this trope in light of contemporary research into sound theory and the instrumentalization of sense perception in modernity, before turning more pointedly to think through the repercussions of Lacan’s il n’y a de cause que ce qui cloche in relation to ontology and the history of listening. It then examines in some detail the two writers – Kafka and Lovecraft – who, more than any others, sought a literary aesthetic adequate to grappling with this sound that cannot or should not be heard.

The chapter opens by contrasting the human capacities for audition as opposed to vision, and the qualities conveyed by sound as opposed to those by light. Despite the general acceptance of wave theory, from the nineteenth century through to today issues of auditory location, transmission and reception remain contested. The ‘auditory scene analysis’ conducted by the novels in this study sees/hears them as participating in this ontological and epistemological uncertainty. Both The Return of the Native and ‘Heart of Darkness’ powerfully evoke densely enveloping closed systems that are examined in terms of their circulating sounds, ‘acoustic pictures’ raised upon the air by sighs in Hardy and whispers in Conrad. Whilst the discussion of ‘Heart of Darkness’ shows that it is an individual voice, and particularly its ‘cry’, which provides a guiding thread for Marlow, when the chapter moves on to sound in Nostromo it is the ambient noise of a historically evolving modernity that carries the theme of the reach of ‘material interests’. Sounds, conceived as units of shock, provide the agitated fabric of this novel of jolts and collisions.

A research program that takes full advantage of the quality of the archaeological record eliminates the study of most microscale processes — those that are observed within a human lifetime and that operate at the hierarchical scale of the individual — because the archaeological record is not a suitable medium to study them. Instead, an appropriate research program focuses on: (1) cultural history and (2) macroarchaeology, the search for macroscale patterns and processes in the global archaeological record. Archaeologists can also make unique contributions to the social sciences by studying macroscale processes that operate at a hierarchical level well above that of the individual, that cannot be seen within the span of a human lifetime, but that become visible only when looked from an observation window thousands of years long and thousands of kilometers wide. The archaeological record has the scope necessary to detect macroscale phenomena because it can provide samples that are large enough to cancel out the noise generated by microscale processes. In order to discover macroscale principles affecting human history, archaeologists need to build a global database of archaeological types. Such database can act as a low-pass filter that cancels out the noise generated by microscale factors.

Sensor performance characteristics are generally divided into at least two categories: static and dynamic. Additional categories sometimes used include drift and exposure errors. The performance of sensors in conditions where the measurand is constant or very slowly changing can be characterized by static parameters. Dynamic performance modeling requires the use of differential equations to account for the relation between sensor input and output when the input is rapidly varying. Static characteristics due to friction or other nonlinear effects would vastly complicate the differential equations so, even when the input is not steady, static and dynamic characteristics are considered separately. Static characteristics are determined by carefully excluding dynamic effects. Dynamic characteristics are assessed by assuming that all static effects have been excluded or compensated. Many of these terms have been encountered in chaps. 1 and 2, although without formal definitions. Analog signal. A signal whose information content is continuously proportional to the measurand. If an electrical temperature sensor has a voltage output, that voltage signal fluctuates with the sensor temperature. Voltage output would be continuously proportional to the measurand (temperature) and is analogous to it, hence we refer to the sensor output as an analog signal. Data display. Any mechanism for displaying data to the user. The stem of a mercury-in-glass thermometer with attached scale is a data display. Data storage. A memory element or mechanism for holding data and later recovering them such as a disk or magnetic tape. Again, this could be as simple as a piece of paper. Data transmission. The process of sending a signal from one place to another. The data transmission medium could be a piece of paper, a magnetic tape, radio or light waves, or telephone wires. Digital signal. A signal whose information content varies in discrete steps. The step size can be made arbitrarily small such that a plot of a digitized signal could also resemble the analog signal. However, the granularity of a digital signal will be revealed if it is examined in sufficient detail.

When the input to a sensor is changing rapidly, we observe performance characteristics that are due to the change in input and are not related to static performance characteristics. In this chapter we will assume that a static calibration has been applied so that we can consider dynamic performance independently of static characteristics. The terms “linear” and “nonlinear” have been used in chap. 3 in the static sense. Now they are being used in the dynamic sense where “linear” connotes the applicability of the superposition property. A given sensor could be nonlinear in the static sense (e.g., a PRT is nonlinear in that is static sensitivity is not constant over the range) but could be linear in the dynamic sense (modeled by a linear differential equation). We use differential equations to model this dynamic performance while realizing the models can never be exact. If the dynamic behavior of physical systems can be described by linear differential equations with constant coefficients, the analysis is relatively easy because the solutions are well known. Such equations are always approximations to the actual performance of physical systems that are often nonlinear, vary with time, and have distributed parameters. The justification for the use of simple, readily solved models must be the quality of the fit of the solution to the actual system output and the usefulness of the resulting analysis. Dynamic performance characteristics define the way instruments react to measurand fluctuations. When a temperature sensor is mounted on an airplane these characteristics will indicate what the sensor “sees.” If the airplane flies through a cloud with a slow sensor (where time constant is large) it may not register change of temperature or humidity. That would not be tolerable if we wanted to measure the cloud. Similarly, if the airplane flies through turbulence we would like to measure changes in air speed. Variations in temperature and humidity would be vital in the flight of a radiosonde, so again the time constant of the sensors would be considered. Fluxes of heat, water vapor, and momentum near the ground require fast sensors (with small time constants).

The first-order model discussed in chap. 6 is inadequate when there is more than one energy storage reservoir in the system to be modeled. If the sensor is linear it can be modeled with a higher-order dynamic performance model. Here the term ‘system’ refers to a physical device such as a sensor while the equation refers to the corresponding mathematical model. There exists a dual set of terms corresponding to consideration of the physical system or of the mathematical model. For example, an are coefficients of the mathematical model (see eqn. 8.1) but they also represent some physical aspect of the sensor being modeled; thus they can also be called system parameters. The general dynamic performance model is the linear ordinary differential equation where t = time, the independent variable, x = the dependent variable, an = equation coefficients or system parameters, and xi(t) = input or forcing function. This equation is ordinary because there is only one independent variable. It is linear because the dependent variable and its derivatives occur to the first degree only. This excludes powers, products, and functions such as sin(x). If the system parameters an are constant, the system is time invariant.

Along the signal path from the atmosphere, through the sensors and the data logger to the final archive, the signal quality may be irreversibly comprised. These faults include aliasing caused by poor sampling practice and quantization in an analog to- digital converter. Aliasing and quantization will be defined in this chapter. Drift in some of the system parameters, such as temperature sensitivity, is generally preventable but is not always reversible. Sampling of a signal occurs in the time domain and, frequently, in the space domain with one, two, or three dimensions. In the time domain, the time interval between successive points is called the sampling interval and the data logger controls this interval. When two or more sensors are distributed, vertically, along a mast then the system is sampling both in the time domain and in the space domain. When multiple measurements are arrayed along the surface of the earth, the sampling is occurring in time and in two or three space dimensions. Most meteorological systems are undersampled both in time and space. Space undersampling is an economic necessity. The consequence of undersampling is that frequencies above a certain limit, called the Nyquist frequency, will appear at lower frequencies and this is an irreversible effect. Quantization occurs when the signal is converted from analog to digital in the analog-to-digital converter. Since the range of the converter is expressed in a finite number of digital states, signal amplitudes smaller than this quantity will be lost. This is another irreversible effect. These are not the only irreversible effects. For example, drift is caused by physical changes in a sensor or other component of the measurement system. Drift may have a causal component, such as undocumented temperature sensitivity, and a random component such as wearing of an anemometer bearing. The former is theoretically preventable and reversible, whereas the latter is irreversible. Each element of the system may include some signal averaging, and each element may add bias and gain. As noted in earlier chapters, a sensor is a transducer, a device that changes energy from one form to another.

The theory of light is described by Maxwell’s Equationsand they provide information about the fundamental properties of light. The wave equation is contained within Maxwell’s equations and proof is provided but is an example of a topic that can be skipped. The electromagnetic wave is a transverse wave of both the electric and magnetic field which are also mutually perpendicular. We discuss some of the differences between classical and quantum theory of light but restrict the use of classical wave theory in this text. The classical electromagnetic wave has a momentum that has led to the development of optical twezzers of great use in biological motors. Because the amplitude of the electromagnetic wave is a vector quantity we introduce the concept of polarization to describe the vector properties. We will need the capability in our discussion of reflection.

Drawing on Serres’ concept of the parasite and its point of departure in the history of linguistics and mathematical theory of communication, the chapter develops a concept of Cultural Techniques as a filtering operation which produces the distinction between sign and signal. In three case studies, one about the discovery and the first printed edition of the Res Gestae of Augustus in the sixteenth century, another about Franz Kafka’s famous “Pontus letter” to Felice Bauer, and a third about a radio play by Max Bense which starts with computer generated language on the basis of transition probabilities or Markov chains, it is demonstrated how in typographical, analog, and digital media the encoding of disruption (or noise) becomes constitutive for the idea that texts, telephones, or radio are media of communication. The methodological gain derived from using the cultural techniques approach is most apparent when the ontological distinction between symbols (as defined by logic) and signals (as defined by communications engineering) is replaced by the practical problem of distinguishing between them.

This film is one outcome of a collaborative project focusing on the acoustic environment of one of the two remaining farms, located at the end of Runway B of Japan’s Narita airport, owned and worked by the Shimamura family. The intensities of aircraft sounds in this space relate a story that is globally familiar, about the relationship of airports and aircraft activity to economic and population growth, to the desire for travel and to the mechanics and materials of aircraft design. It is also a local story about this site, where Japanese national and commercial interests, centred on the construction and operation of an international airport, have repeatedly been opposed by the local farming community of Sanrizuka. The film Air Pressure used sound recordings, on-site and archive film, to represent the sonic experiences of living and working on this farm, which is surrounded by the airport’s infrastructure and constantly monitored by surveillance and sound measuring mechanisms

Progress in neurosurgical procedures and equipment, such as the adaptation of clinical intracerebral electrodes with microelectrodes combined with multi-channel wide bandwidth recording systems, has yielded data with exceptional temporal and spatial resolution used to study single neuron properties of epilepsy and human behavior. Obtaining high fidelity single neuron recordings, however, is demanding and must conform to ethical and safety standards associated with human subject studies. In this context, electrode materials and design, and components of the data acquisition system including headstages, cabling, signal conditioning and analog-to-digital conversion require careful consideration in order to reliably acquire neuronal signals. Here, electrodes and the equipment used to record neuronal activity will be discussed.

This chapter theorizes the figure of the mannequin and noise as modes of erotic investment in artificiality and unnaturalness. Routing sexual libertinism through the body of difference, ugliness is conspicuous as mannequin fetish, noise music, and disabled performance. After offering a critical genealogy that rethinks the mannequin’s association with beauty, this chapter shows how the figure of the mannequin becomes an emblem of nonnormative desires and fetishistic impulses, championing forms of the erotic that reflect artificiality in material and auditory contexts. Calling into question both the artificial object and objectification, it explores the sonic textures of Narcissister and A. L. Steiner’s experimental art-film Winter/Spring Collection (2013) whose “semi-live nude mannequin” functions as a radical critique of dominant sexual embodiment via the oppositional backdrop of noise.

This chapter defines information with intuitive reasoning and simple equations. It then explains how information is transmitted by a protein molecule and also how the amount transmitted depends on signal statistics, noise, redundancy, and speed of response (bandwidth). Because a protein molecule binds a specific input to produce a specific output (e.g. enzyme binds substrate and outputs product), it transmits information; moreover it connects precisely in a molecular circuit. A protein molecule processes information by changing from one conformation to another (allostery). The protein molecule can be no smaller and still maintain stable conformations, and it responds to energy inputs that are barely above noise. Thus a protein transmits and processes information with an efficiency approaching physical limits. The G-protein coupled receptor for adrenalin exemplifies binding specificity and allostery as it receives, transmits, amplifies, and terminates signals in a wireless molecular circuit: molecules simply diffuse and bump. Although a protein molecule operates near the thermodynamic minimum, energy must be consumed in transmitting and processing information. Adding energy increases speed and reliability, but the lowest rate is cheapest. Thus principles of neural design emerge at the molecular level -- in protein circuits that compute with chemistry.

This introductory chapter presents the end of Don DeLillo's White Noise. The protagonist, Jack Gladney seeks assurance from an elderly nun about the faith of others while being treated in a Catholic hospital. The nun portrays religion in the final stages of secular decline—a portrayal heightened by the notion that a postmodern remnant simulates belief on the superiority of secular moderns. The story is a vivid literary snapshot of American religion in the 1980s, but one that was spectacularly wrong. Perhaps caught in her own parochial enclave (“Germantown”), the nun seems unaware that many Americans continued to believe strongly in many of the ideas she derides, including God, the devil, angels, hell, heaven, and even the final battle between the heavenly host and Satan's forces.

This chapter introduces the main organization that promoted noise abatement in early twentieth-century Britain, the Anti-Noise League led by Thomas Horder, as well as the rise of self-help advice for those suffering from noise sensitivity. Because the League and its supporters mounted a medical critique of noise, the chapter situates noise abatement in its medical historical context, arguing that anti-noise advocates drew on the diagnostic paradigm of neurasthenia. They did so even though this category was increasingly outdated in medical terms following the rise of the new psychology. The use of neurasthenia limited the scientific credibility of noise abatement, but gave it powerful cultural purchase thanks to popular ideas about “nerves.”

This chapter inserts an interruption into the story usually told about sound control in modernity, arguing that scientific and secular rationalisms were not the only forces shaping responses to the problem of noise in the early twentieth century. The chapter takes account of those seeking sonic “re-enchantment” via sounds that promised to reconnect the hearing self with the magical vibrations of the cosmos. The chapter takes the Theosophical movement as its case study, tracing the influence of this movement on a range of cultural projects that emerged in response to modern noise, including self-help writing, social sound projects such as John Foulds’s “Cenotaph in Sound” as well as Maud MacCarthy’s experiments in musical healing.

This chapter takes the case study of the Second World War to trace the progress of the various “ways of hearing” outlined so far in the book. The chapter focusses on national sounds and national hearing as features of sonic modernity, tracing the war’s influence on attempts to shape the auditory space of the nation. It shows how the noise abatement movement dealt with the war, taking civil defence workers out of the city for quiet rest breaks in the countryside, and considers the meaning of different wartime sounds, such as bomb noise and church bells, to the wartime nation. The chapter argues that wartime citizens were situated as hearers and directed towards “healthy” ways to hear the war by different auditory experts.