Low frequency and infrasound: A critical review of the myths, misbeliefs and their relevance to music perception research

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg H. Mühlhans

Over the last several decades low frequency and infrasound have become relevant to many fields of research – most recently psychology and musicology, among others. Interpretation of data from experimental research has raised concern that low frequency and infrasound could be potentially harmful to humans’ well-being. While the physiological and psychological effects of infrasound are well documented, a variety of myths promulgated by pseudoscientific authors and newspapers still make it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, especially for people with little or no knowledge in acoustics. Myths are widespread today and result mainly from the one-dimensional view on sound, out-of-context citations, and a number of “sensational” findings from biased studies. The aim of this review is to evaluate the relevance of data from a music-psychological and psychoacoustic point of view, to give a consistent overview of the history of research, to examine the transferability of findings, and to trace the origins of myths to debunk them. Additionally, general information about the characteristics of low frequency sound, its production, measurement, and difficulties in experimental research is given to avoid mistakes in future research.

Author(s):  
Ivan Boserup ◽  
Karsten Christensen

Ivan Boserup & Karsten Christensen: Anders Sørensen Vedel’s manuscript about Marshal Stig. Two comments on Svend Clausen’s thesis in Fund og Forskning 55, 2016 Svend Clausen has in vol. 55 of Fund og Forskning called attention to a lost and “forgotten” parchment manuscript described by Anders Sørensen Vedel in 1595 as “The History of Marshal Stig” containing key documents related to the trial which followed the assassination in Finderup Grange of King Eric V ‘Glipping’ of Denmark (1259–1286). Clausen’s evidence consists of registrations of manuscripts known only through their titles, which had been available to the Danish historians Anders Sørensen Vedel (1542–1616), Niels Krag (1550–1602), and Jon Jakobsen ‘Venusinus’ (1563–1608), but appear ultimately to have burned in the fire of Copenhagen in 1728. The sources referred to by Clausen were published in one case by H. F. Rørdam in 1874, in all other cases in the appendix to S. Birket Smith’s History of the University Library of Copenhagen, 1882, reprinted 1982. Apparently inspired by a casual remark made in 1891 by the then very young historian Mouritz Mackeprang, Svend Clausen argues that despite the lack of extant copies and quotations etc., the manuscript’s supposedly exclusively judicial contents and allegedly very considerable volume reveal the “existence” of such an important source that future research on the background and consequences of the royal assassination must take much more account of this lost source than has been the case until now. Reviewing Svend Clausen’s arguments, Ivan Boserup corrects Rørdam’s and Clausen’s incomplete reading of the source on which the latter builds his identification of Vedel’s manuscript with descriptions of a lost manuscript “Concerning King Eric [Glipping],” and rejects Clausen’s interpretation of “… cum adversariis ac diversis” (Clausen seems unaware of the literary concept of adversaria), on which all his further arguments are based. From his professional standpoint as a historian, Karsten Christensen refers to Vedel’s strong focus on Marshal Stig in his collection of One Hundred Danish Folk Songs (publ. 1591), to Vedel’s idiosyncratic manner of describing his manuscripts from the point of view of his own main interests, and to the fact that in contrast to the Jens Grand trial held before the Pope in Rome in 1296, one should not expect written actiones to have been delivered at the meeting of the Danish grandees in Nyborg Castle in 1286 subsequent to the murder of Eric Glipping. Christensen therefore suggests that it is much more probable that the manuscript referred to in Vedel’s registration refers to a lost manuscript that, contrary to the one associated by Svend Clausen with Vedel’s lost manuscript, can be followed closely all the way up to 1728, and the contents of which have been detailed by the historian Stephanus Stephanius (1599–1650).


Res Publica ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 361-380
Author(s):  
Paul Magnette

This paper examines the evolving ideological content of the concept of citizenship and particularly the challenges it faces as a consequence of the building of the European Union. From an epistemological point of view it is first argued that citizenship may be described as a dual concept: it is both a legal institution composed of the rights of the citizen as they are fixed at a certain moment of its history, and a normative ideal which embodies their political aspirations. As a result of this dual nature, citizenship is an essentially dynamicnotion, which is permanently evolving between a state of balance and change.  The history of this concept in contemporary political thought shows that, from the end of the second World War it had raised a synthesis of democratic, liberal and socialist values on the one hand, and that it was historically and logically bound to the Nation-State on the other hand. This double synthesis now seems to be contested, as the themes of the "crisis of the Nation State" and"crisis of the Welfare state" do indicate. The last part of this paper grapples with recent theoretical proposals of new forms of european citizenship, and argues that the concept of citizenship could be renovated and take its challenges into consideration by insisting on the duties and the procedures it contains.


1886 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 359-367
Author(s):  
J. H. Collins

My argument that at Porthalla there is a “passage” from hornblende-schist to serpentine; or rather that some beds of a common series have been changed into serpentine, others into hornblende-schist, and others again into a substance of intermediate character, is, I think, much strengthened by the fact that many such “apparent passages” are admitted to exist by all those who have examined the Lizard Coast with any degree of detail. De la Beche's description of that seen near the Lizard Town is as follows, and it would apply equally well to the others. “The hornblende slate,” he says, “supports the great mass of the Lizard serpentine with an apparent passage of the one into the other in many places—an apparent passage somewhat embarrassing,” that is, from his point of view; from mine it is perfectly natural. He goes on to say: “Whatever the cause of this apparent passage may have been, it is very readily seen at Mullion Cove, at Pradanack Point, at the coast west of Lizard Town, and at several places on the east coast between Landewednack and Kennick Cove, more especially under the Balk … and at the remarkable cavern and open cavity named the Frying-Pan, near Cadgwith.” At Kynance some of the laminse of serpentine are not more than one-tenth of an inch in thickness for considerable distances.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mie Thorborg Pedersen ◽  
Per Lyngs Hansen ◽  
Mathias Porsmose Clausen

Useful attempts to shed light on the nature of gastronomy from a scientific point of view and to unravel the crucial connection between food, eating and well-being are currently underrepresented in the scientific literature. However, several scientific disciplines ranging from the natural to the social sciences offer valuable new perspectives on gastronomy. As one of the key disciplines in natural science, physics offers original and rigorous perspectives on all processes and structures constrained by the laws of nature. The emerging discipline called gastrophysics employs the full range of concepts, techniques and methods from physics to generate useful scientific input to the complex and holistic reflections on gastronomy. Relying on a review of the existing literature, this article illustrates how a science-based gastrophysics emerges, to a large extent from the convoluted history of food science as well as from various recent – and often overlapping – attempts to combine modern scientific methodology to questions from gastronomy. However, the present review also insists on a physics-inspired methodology to handle scale and complexity in food preparation and consumption across length scales from sub-molecular to entire foods. We exemplify how gastrophysics directly helps to develop gastronomy and how it adds to current approaches in traditional food science. We also suggest that gastrophysics may prove relevant in the context of the ongoing food transformation, which focuses strongly on sustainability, but where the importance of gastronomic aspects in this transformation is greatly needed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 33-53
Author(s):  
Jan Pacholski

From travel accounts to guidebooks: The beginnings of guidebooks to the Giant Mountains Karkonosze for travellers in the late 18th and early 19th centuryIn the history of European tourism the Giant Mountains Karkonosze occupy a unique place thanks to the Chapel of St. Lawrence, funded by Count Christoph Leopold Schaffgotsch and located on the summit of Śnieżka. Its construction in the Habsburg dominions in the turbulent period of the Counter-Reformation was meant to finally put an end to the Silesian-Bohemian border dispute and become a visible sign of Catholic rule over the highest mountain range of the two neighbouring countries. The construction of the chapel also marked the beginning of tourism in the highest range of the Sudetes; initially, its nature was religious and focused on pilgrimages to the summit of Śnieżka, featuring, in addition to local inhabitants, also sanatorium visitors to Cieplice Warmbrunn, which was owned by the Schaffgotschs.After the three Silesian Wars, as a result of which the lands to the north of the mountains were separated from the Habsburgs’ Kingdom of Bohemia, the situation in the region changed radically. The Counter-Reformation pressure ceased and the Lutherans began to grow in importance, supported as they were by the decidedly pro-Protestant Prussian state, governed by its tolerant monarch.The period was also marked by an unprecedented growth in the literature on the Giant Mountains — there were poems Tralles, nature studies Volkmar and travel accounts GutsMuths, Troschel and others written about the highest range of the Sudetes. A special role among these writings was played by works aimed at introducing the public from the capital Berlin to the new province of the Kingdom of Prussia, especially to the mountains, so exotic from the point of view of the “groves and sands” of Brandenburg. These publications were written primarily by Lutheran clergymen, which was not without significance to the nature of the works. This was also a time when the first guidebooks to the Giant Mountains were written, with many of their authors also coming from the same milieu.What emerges from this image is a kind of confessionalisation of tourism in the highest mountains of Silesia and Bohemia: on the one hand there are mass Catholic pilgrimages and on the other — a new type of individual tourists who, with a book in hand, traverse mountain paths in a decidedly more independent fashion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tautvydas Vėželis

This article examines the problem of overcoming nihilism in Heidegger’s dialogue with Jünger. It is suggested that nihilism is manifested in various forms and is the deep logic of the whole history of European civilization. One of the main aims of this paper is to outline the relationship of nihilism and Nothing in Heidegger’s dispute with Jünger, viewing how Heidegger distinguishes his approach from Jünger’s point of view. Heidegger, on the one hand, treats nihilism as consummation of the Western metaphysical tradition, on the other hand, identifies Nothing itself as the shadow of Being, which cannot be overcome in the traditional dialectical thinking manner.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
F. A. Asadullin

The problem of disintegration of the Islamic Ummah a long time ago became the one of the most important for the Islamic world and worldview. The wave of violence in the Near and Middle East sharpened some regional conflicts, which have already taken place before. The paper deals with the roots of this conflict atmosphere in the Early Islamic period. As the tradition affirms, the Prophet Muhammad predicted the Ummah to split in 73 sects. Today there exist in any case not less than 73 different Islamic schools, movements and organizations, which mutually and constantly contest their doctrinal authenticity. Moreover, the activity of quasi- Islamic extremist organisations like the ISIS, which is forbidden inside as well as outside the Russian Federation, is quite remarkable. All these factors demonstrate, that from the academic point of view it is actual to critically research the nature of fragmentation and disintegration of Islamic communities through the prism of prophetic legends. This paper is to consider as an attempt to resolve this multidimensional problem.


2019 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 04035
Author(s):  
Oleg Mazavin ◽  
Mikhail Kaz ◽  
Irina Roshchina

The article presents the results of the analysis of the practice of implementation the concept of universal basic income. It is shown that in estimating the results of a series of experiments in this field, conducted in a number of countries, it is recommended to abandon the approach based on the positivist point of view. For a long time, it dominated science in general and economic research in particular, but it continues to influence many researchers today. This conclusion should be taken into account in the formation of the structure and composition of regions’ welfare indices. The research materials are placed in a broad historical context. On the one hand, this made it possible to more vividly present the prerequisites, characteristics and consequences of repeated attempts to introduce universal basic income into the practice of social insurance, undertaken in different countries of the world (Finland, Canada, Kenya, Iran, India, USA). On the other hand, to reveal the possibilities and problems of using universal basic income as a tool to help overcome the dysfunctional development of certain territories, including mining regions.


2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-433
Author(s):  
John Trappes-Lomax

Chaplains in penal times were on occasion employed as stewards, though perhaps not as frequently as is sometimes supposed; from the point of view of their employers this is not entirely surprising; on the one hand chaplains might reasonably be expected to be literate, numerate and honest; on the other hand the restrictions under which Catholic priests worked might well leave them a sufficiency of spare time for secular affairs. The interest of the letter which follows lies not in the mere fact of such a stewardship, but in the extraordinarily vivid picture it gives of what it was like for a professed Religious to be involved in running an estate—particularly when his employer was of questionable sanity. Some light is incidentally thrown on the history of Catholicism in Linton-on-Ouse.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Nesticò ◽  
Maria Rosaria Guarini ◽  
Pierluigi Morano ◽  
Francesco Sica

The second half of the 20th century was characterized by rapid growth of the urban population and lack of attention to environmental quality in the urbanizes territories. Thus, the development of many cities during that period took place through policies which, over time, resulted in a disaggregated landscape, both in morphological and functional terms. In some cases, these policies have caused the creation of land portions without a specific characterization, and the generation of urban voids that negatively affect the city’s development. To solve this problem, the public administration sectors of many countries are looking for new intervention strategies that are feasible from a social and economic point of view which are able to guarantee sustainable development. From this perspective, the execution of urban regeneration initiatives, including forestation, allows for the improvement of both environmental quality and citizens’ well-being, and promotes economic development. Considering the multiple effects that these initiatives can generate and the limited availability of public and private resources, it is appropriate to use multi-criteria decision support tools through which it is possible to evaluate the interventions’ complexity and best identify the city areas that lend themselves to be recovered and improved through the forestation. The aim of this work is to develop a support tool for public administrations aimed at identifying the optimal forestry projects’ location according to criteria that not only refer to financial type, but also their social, cultural, and environmental nature. Using Discrete Linear Programming algorithms, the model has been tested through a theoretical case study and reveals the advantages and limitations of the model, as well as future research prospects.


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