A. Townsend Peterson, Jorge Soberón, Richard G. Pearson, Robert P. Anderson, Enrique Martínez-Meyer, Miguel Nakamura, and Miguel Bastos Araújo
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691136868
- eISBN:
- 9781400840670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691136868.003.0008
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Matilde Nardelli
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474444040
- eISBN:
- 9781474490573
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474444040.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the relation between sound and image in Antonioni’s films of the 1960s. It considers how the ostensibly quieter films of the 1960s – in which dialogue becomes sparser and from ...
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This chapter explores the relation between sound and image in Antonioni’s films of the 1960s. It considers how the ostensibly quieter films of the 1960s – in which dialogue becomes sparser and from which extra-diegetic musical soundtrack is all but eliminated – have crucial affinity with contemporaneous transformations in music itself, where the diffusion of new mass media technologies such as audiotape and television, acted as powerful catalysts for experimentation with noise and attention to soundscape. In particular, I trace here a connection with the experimental practices of John Cage, musique concrète, and composers including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and Luigi Nono associated with RAI Studio di fonologia musicale.Less
This chapter explores the relation between sound and image in Antonioni’s films of the 1960s. It considers how the ostensibly quieter films of the 1960s – in which dialogue becomes sparser and from which extra-diegetic musical soundtrack is all but eliminated – have crucial affinity with contemporaneous transformations in music itself, where the diffusion of new mass media technologies such as audiotape and television, acted as powerful catalysts for experimentation with noise and attention to soundscape. In particular, I trace here a connection with the experimental practices of John Cage, musique concrète, and composers including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and Luigi Nono associated with RAI Studio di fonologia musicale.
Julian Murphet
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474416368
- eISBN:
- 9781474434591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416368.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Hugh Epstein
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474449861
- eISBN:
- 9781474477086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474449861.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Charles Perreault
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226630823
- eISBN:
- 9780226631011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226631011.003.0007
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
B. D. Guenther
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198842859
- eISBN:
- 9780191878770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198842859.003.0002
- Subject:
- Physics, Atomic, Laser, and Optical Physics
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Yetta Howard
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252041884
- eISBN:
- 9780252050572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041884.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Bernhard Siegert
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263752
- eISBN:
- 9780823268962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263752.003.0002
- Subject:
- Information Science, Communications
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Karin Bijsterveld, Eefje Cleophas, Stefan Krebs, and Gijs Mom
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199925698
- eISBN:
- 9780199350155
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199925698.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Psychology of Music
Do you enjoy listening to music while driving your car? Do you find radio traffic information indispensable? Do you appreciate the moments in between work and home in which you can listen to or sing ...
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Do you enjoy listening to music while driving your car? Do you find radio traffic information indispensable? Do you appreciate the moments in between work and home in which you can listen to or sing along with whatever you like?This book shows how we created auditory privacy in our Western cars, making it feel sound and safe, even though automobiles were highly noisy things at the beginning of the twentieth century. It explains how engineers in the automotive industry found pride in making car engines quieter once they realized that noise stood for inefficiently running machines. It follows them in struggling with the sounds audible within the car after the automobile had become a closed vehicle. It tells how noise-induced fatigue became an issue once the car became a mass means for touring across the country. It unravels the initial societal concerns about the dangers of car radio, and how radio traffic information became crucial for avoiding traffic jams. And it explores how car drivers once listened to their cars’ engines to diagnose car problems, and are now supposed to buy a car because of its high quality sound design. This book is about the sounds of car engines, tires, wipers, blinkers, warning signals, in-car audio systems and, ultimately, about how we became used to listen while driving.Less
Do you enjoy listening to music while driving your car? Do you find radio traffic information indispensable? Do you appreciate the moments in between work and home in which you can listen to or sing along with whatever you like?This book shows how we created auditory privacy in our Western cars, making it feel sound and safe, even though automobiles were highly noisy things at the beginning of the twentieth century. It explains how engineers in the automotive industry found pride in making car engines quieter once they realized that noise stood for inefficiently running machines. It follows them in struggling with the sounds audible within the car after the automobile had become a closed vehicle. It tells how noise-induced fatigue became an issue once the car became a mass means for touring across the country. It unravels the initial societal concerns about the dangers of car radio, and how radio traffic information became crucial for avoiding traffic jams. And it explores how car drivers once listened to their cars’ engines to diagnose car problems, and are now supposed to buy a car because of its high quality sound design. This book is about the sounds of car engines, tires, wipers, blinkers, warning signals, in-car audio systems and, ultimately, about how we became used to listen while driving.
Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719085055
- eISBN:
- 9781526109958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085055.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
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 ...
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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 mechanismsLess
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
Thomas Swann
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529208788
- eISBN:
- 9781529208832
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529208788.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Chapter Six focuses on communication practices and social media, examining how the concept of noise features in how cybernetics understands communication and information. The chapter considers how ...
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Chapter Six focuses on communication practices and social media, examining how the concept of noise features in how cybernetics understands communication and information. The chapter considers how certain communication practice are more prone to problems concerning noise, linking this discussion to the experiences of the Spanish 15M protests where activists highlighted different forms of noise in communication practices. The chapter points towards ‘pink noise’ as a form of noise in networks that is conducive to self-organisation. As well as making an argument for a reappraisal of how we think about noise in relation to social and digital media, the chapter suggests that the concept of ‘pink noise’ can be a constructive contribution to how activists organise around online platforms. Rather that aiming to eliminate noise from communication, the introduction of the notion of ‘pink noise’ shows how that a more nuanced position can be developed that is conducive to the self-organisation at the heart of anarchist cybernetics.Less
Chapter Six focuses on communication practices and social media, examining how the concept of noise features in how cybernetics understands communication and information. The chapter considers how certain communication practice are more prone to problems concerning noise, linking this discussion to the experiences of the Spanish 15M protests where activists highlighted different forms of noise in communication practices. The chapter points towards ‘pink noise’ as a form of noise in networks that is conducive to self-organisation. As well as making an argument for a reappraisal of how we think about noise in relation to social and digital media, the chapter suggests that the concept of ‘pink noise’ can be a constructive contribution to how activists organise around online platforms. Rather that aiming to eliminate noise from communication, the introduction of the notion of ‘pink noise’ shows how that a more nuanced position can be developed that is conducive to the self-organisation at the heart of anarchist cybernetics.
Itzhak Fried
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027205
- eISBN:
- 9780262323994
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027205.003.0005
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Research and Theory
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Peter Sterling
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262028707
- eISBN:
- 9780262327312
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028707.003.0005
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Research and Theory
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Christopher Douglas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501702112
- eISBN:
- 9781501703539
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501702112.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Karin Bijsterveld, Eefje Cleophas, Stefan Krebs, and Gijs Mom
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199925698
- eISBN:
- 9780199350155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199925698.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Psychology of Music
Chapter four shows how from the 1970s onwards not only the driver became encapsulated, but the car itself. In response to national and international regulation that limited the maximum noise levels ...
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Chapter four shows how from the 1970s onwards not only the driver became encapsulated, but the car itself. In response to national and international regulation that limited the maximum noise levels citizens were allowed to be exposed to, many countries established roadside noise barriers, with the Netherlands as champion. These barriers met with resistance from both residents living close to highways and drivers. Drivers complained about the barriers’ imprisoning underground effect, feelings of being immersed in an uncontrollable stream, and loosing their view on the natural landscape. This resulted in “denial design” such as the establishment of transparent and green roadside noise barriers, but roadside noise barriers remained unpopular. In this situation of reduced control, worsened by the rise of traffic jams, listening to traffic information radio and audio books seemed to be a last refuge for experiencing freedom on the road.Less
Chapter four shows how from the 1970s onwards not only the driver became encapsulated, but the car itself. In response to national and international regulation that limited the maximum noise levels citizens were allowed to be exposed to, many countries established roadside noise barriers, with the Netherlands as champion. These barriers met with resistance from both residents living close to highways and drivers. Drivers complained about the barriers’ imprisoning underground effect, feelings of being immersed in an uncontrollable stream, and loosing their view on the natural landscape. This resulted in “denial design” such as the establishment of transparent and green roadside noise barriers, but roadside noise barriers remained unpopular. In this situation of reduced control, worsened by the rise of traffic jams, listening to traffic information radio and audio books seemed to be a last refuge for experiencing freedom on the road.
James G. Mansell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040672
- eISBN:
- 9780252099113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040672.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
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 ...
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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.”Less
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.”
James G. Mansell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040672
- eISBN:
- 9780252099113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040672.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
James G. Mansell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040672
- eISBN:
- 9780252099113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040672.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
Edmund T. Rolls
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198871101
- eISBN:
- 9780191914157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198871101.003.0018
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Neuroendocrine and Autonomic
In this chapter we consider how the operation of attractor networks in the brain is influenced by noise in the brain produced by the random firing times of neurons for a given mean firing rate; how ...
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In this chapter we consider how the operation of attractor networks in the brain is influenced by noise in the brain produced by the random firing times of neurons for a given mean firing rate; how this can in fact be beneficial to the operation of the brain; and how the stability of these systems and how they are influenced by noise in the brain is relevant to understanding a number of mental disorders. The concept of noise in attractor networks is important to understanding decision-making, short-term memory, and depression and schizophrenia, and this is described in this Chapter. It is a key aim of this book to increase understanding of the brain that is relevant not only to its operation in health, but also in disease, and how it may be possible to ameliorate some of the effects found in these mental and other disorders.Less
In this chapter we consider how the operation of attractor networks in the brain is influenced by noise in the brain produced by the random firing times of neurons for a given mean firing rate; how this can in fact be beneficial to the operation of the brain; and how the stability of these systems and how they are influenced by noise in the brain is relevant to understanding a number of mental disorders. The concept of noise in attractor networks is important to understanding decision-making, short-term memory, and depression and schizophrenia, and this is described in this Chapter. It is a key aim of this book to increase understanding of the brain that is relevant not only to its operation in health, but also in disease, and how it may be possible to ameliorate some of the effects found in these mental and other disorders.
Steen Christiansen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719089770
- eISBN:
- 9781781708651
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089770.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Tom Waits's album Bone Machine (1992) sounds like an apocalyptic vision, the clattering of percussion like a dance of skeletons, Waits's gravelly voice a necromancer conjuring America's ghosts of ...
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Tom Waits's album Bone Machine (1992) sounds like an apocalyptic vision, the clattering of percussion like a dance of skeletons, Waits's gravelly voice a necromancer conjuring America's ghosts of both past and future. The album is itself a bone machine, a thing stitched together with all the scars showing. Its monstrosity articulates the spectres that surround an imminent apocalypse. Gothic media images are conjured up to show how much haunting, spectres and ghosts have always been part of the American national imagination. Drawing on David Wills's concept of dorsality, in which the human is constituted in and through the technological, this chapter argues that Waits's dorsal music employs unexpected sounds, disruptive musical technologies and vocal rasp in order to surprise and sometimes disconcert the listener. This disruptive and disrupted listening experience enables Waits to realise in auditory form a tradition of American Gothic that identifies with the outsider.Less
Tom Waits's album Bone Machine (1992) sounds like an apocalyptic vision, the clattering of percussion like a dance of skeletons, Waits's gravelly voice a necromancer conjuring America's ghosts of both past and future. The album is itself a bone machine, a thing stitched together with all the scars showing. Its monstrosity articulates the spectres that surround an imminent apocalypse. Gothic media images are conjured up to show how much haunting, spectres and ghosts have always been part of the American national imagination. Drawing on David Wills's concept of dorsality, in which the human is constituted in and through the technological, this chapter argues that Waits's dorsal music employs unexpected sounds, disruptive musical technologies and vocal rasp in order to surprise and sometimes disconcert the listener. This disruptive and disrupted listening experience enables Waits to realise in auditory form a tradition of American Gothic that identifies with the outsider.
