Listening in the Afterlife of Data

In Listening in the Afterlife of Data, David Cecchetto theorizes sound, communication, and data by analyzing them in the contexts of the practical workings of specific technologies, situations, and artworks. In a time he calls the afterlife of data—the cultural context in which data’s hegemony persists even in the absence of any belief in its validity—Cecchetto shows how data is repositioned as the latest in a long line of concepts that are at once constitutive of communication and suggestive of its limits. Cecchetto points to the failures and excesses of communication by focusing on the power of listening—whether through wearable technology, internet-based artwork, or the ways in which computers process sound—to pragmatically comprehend the representational excesses that data produces. Writing at a cultural moment in which data has never been more ubiquitous or less convincing, Cecchetto elucidates the paradoxes that are constitutive of computation and communication more broadly, demonstrating that data is never quite what it seems.

Counselling-in-continuum-modern solution to ‘Google’ patients?

Aim of the study was to highlight the benefits, barriers and methodology pertaining to effective patient counselling. The modern-day patient is well informed and well aware of patient rights. The need of the hour is to implement management plans jointly agreed upon based on both scientific evidence and patient preference by proper patient counselling. The process of counselling represents a well-founded intervention made of a quality interaction between the counsellor and the patient. Effective communication is advantageous for both healthcare professionals in the form of a comprehensive medico legal document, as well as for the patient as it tends to allay fear of treatment, dissipate misconceptions garnered from half-baked knowledge off the internet, cementing a bond of trust between the two. Counselling forms should carry information pertaining to the details regarding the patient’s disease, treatment options, pros and cons with aids in the form of pictures, models and videos. Ample time should be spent on the patient’s doubts, without the use of medical jargons. Barriers to effective communication include physical, psychological, administrative or time conflicts. Upliftment from the quick sands of barriers to patient communication requires the introduction of a curriculum laying emphasis on sound communication skills right from the undergraduate stage. Furthermore, internet can be used to aid counselling in the form of legit informative portals wherein patients are able to gather correct information about their disease and prognosis as is the case with online healthcare communities.

Archetypal Discursive Typologies in Hetero(sym)phony by Cornel Țăranu

"As syntactic typologies, monody and heterophony are detectable in modern and contemporary music as states and manifestations of primordial impulses of sound communication, detectable in the ancient folklore of all peoples. Their filtering through the sieve of contemporary cerebralism cannot elude their force of penetration into the sphere of affect and of the archetypal representations. The paper proposes to fathom and bring to light some principles and ways of archetypal discursive organization in Hetero(sym)phony, by Cornel Țăranu. Keywords: musical archetype, Cornel Țăranu, Hetero(sym)phony, heterophony, sound organization, contemporary music. "

Covid-19 Impact on the Music Sector in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais, Brazil)

This article addresses the difficulties of musicians and measures taken by public and private authorities to mitigate the social impact of Covid-19 in the music sector of Belo Horizonte, capital city of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. These are preliminary results of a research developed by the research lab on Sound, Communication, Textualities and Sociability [ESCUTAS (in Portuguese)] at the Social Communication Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. This study has two perspectives. First, we surveyed public sources about Brazilian measures for the sector, as we are interested in verifying policies used by the private and public sectors, not only at the national level, but also at regional (state of Minas Gerais) and local (city of Belo Horizonte) levels. Second, we investigate the impact of the pandemic on the city's music sector, considering various categories of the profession such as composers, interpreters, arrangers, music teachers, DJs, among others. This work is part of a scenario of academic research and economic reports on the impacts of the pandemic in the music industry. More specifically, it aims to contribute to discussion on the effects of the social distance on livelihood of professionals of that area.

How Loud Can you go? Physical and Physiological Constraints to Producing High Sound Pressures in Animal Vocalizations

Sound is vital for communication and navigation across the animal kingdom and sound communication is unrivaled in accuracy and information richness over long distances both in air and water. The source level (SL) of the sound is a key factor in determining the range at which animals can communicate and the range at which echolocators can operate their biosonar. Here we compile, standardize and compare measurements of the loudest animals both in air and water. In air we find a remarkable similarity in the highest SLs produced across the different taxa. Within all taxa we find species that produce sound above 100 dBpeak re 20 μPa at 1 m, and a few bird and mammal species have SLs as high as 125 dBpeak re 20 μPa at 1 m. We next used pulsating sphere and piston models to estimate the maximum sound pressures generated in the radiated sound field. These data suggest that the loudest species within all taxa converge upon maximum pressures of 140–150 dBpeak re 20 μPa in air. In water, the toothed whales produce by far the loudest SLs up to 240 dBpeak re 1 μPa at 1 m. We discuss possible physical limitations to the production, radiation and propagation of high sound pressures. Furthermore, we discuss physiological limitations to the wide variety of sound generating mechanisms that have evolved in air and water of which many are still not well-understood or even unknown. We propose that in air, non-linear sound propagation forms a limit to producing louder sounds. While non-linear sound propagation may play a role in water as well, both sperm whale and pistol shrimp reach another physical limit of sound production, the cavitation limit in water. Taken together, our data suggests that both in air and water, animals evolved that produce sound so loud that they are pushing against physical rather than physiological limits of sound production, radiation and propagation.

Bridging Three Gaps in Biodegradable Plastics: Misconceptions and Truths About Biodegradation

In the wake of plastic pollution increasing around the world, biodegradable plastics are one of the fastest-growing segments within the global plastics market. The biodegradation of these plastics depends on diverse factors including, but not limited to, the physicochemical structure of the materials, environmental conditions, and the microbial populations involved in the biodegradation. Although laboratory-based biodegradation tests simulate natural processes, they cannot precisely mimic the natural biodegradation of biodegradable plastics due to the disparity of several factors. In addition, the biodegradation levels claimed and/or reported by individuals and studies in different environments vary to a great extent. Biodegradable plastics are considered a sustainable alternative to non-biodegradable conventional plastics and are being promoted as an eco-friendlier choice for consumers. However, biodegradable plastics might not be as biodegradable as commonly believed, particularly in natural environments. This mini-review aims to bridge the following three gaps in biodegradable plastics by elucidating the common misconceptions and truths about biodegradation: i) the gaps among reported biodegradation level of biodegradable plastics; ii) the gaps between the biodegradation conditions in the controlled laboratory system and in the natural environment; and iii) the gaps between public perception and the actual environmental fate of biodegradable products. These gaps are critically reviewed with feasible solutions. This work will ease the assessment of biodegradable plastics and provide sound communication on corresponding claims–a prerequisite for successful market performance.

The Expressive Culture of Sound Communication among Humans and Other Beings

This chapter is divided into four parts, addressed in turn to four questions: (1) How might phenomenological methods inform field research and ethnographic studies of people making music? (2) How do concepts from phenomenology, especially direct social perception, direct perception empathy, and embodiment, inform research on the expressive culture of same-species beings, both human and nonhuman, communicating with each other by means of sound? (3) How might phenomenology contribute to our understanding of cross-species sonic communication? (4) What might be gained (and lost) when ethnomusicologists reorient their research from the study of people making music to eco-ethnomusicology, the study of beings making sound?

Mosquito sound communication: are male swarms loud enough to attract females?

Given the unsurpassed sound sensitivity of mosquitoes among arthropods and the sound source power required for long-range hearing, we investigated the distance over which female mosquitoes detect species-specific cues in the sound of station-keeping mating swarms. A common misunderstanding, that mosquitoes cannot hear at long range because their hearing organs are ‘particle-velocity’ receptors, has clouded the fact that particle velocity is an intrinsic component of sound whatever the distance to the sound source. We exposed free-flying Anopheles coluzzii females to pre-recorded sounds of male An. coluzzii and An. gambiae s.s. swarms over a range of natural sound levels. Sound levels tested were related to equivalent distances between the female and the swarm for a given number of males, enabling us to infer distances over which females might hear large male swarms. We show that females do not respond to swarm sound up to 48 dB sound pressure level (SPL) and that louder SPLs are not ecologically relevant for a swarm. Considering that swarms are the only mosquito sound source that would be loud enough to be heard at long range, we conclude that inter-mosquito acoustic communication is restricted to close-range pair interactions. We also showed that the sensitivity to sound in free-flying males is much enhanced compared to that of tethered ones.

SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MUSICAL PERCEPTION

Perception of music is auditory-motor in nature, accompanied by active bodily responses. It would be a gross methodological mistake not to take this intoaccount in the practice of art education. The effects of music, recorded not only by the ear, but also by the body, and by the vibrations of the muscles, indicate a unified musical perception. Sensorimotor skills saturate it with bodily associations, become fixed in memory, become artifacts of co-creation, solidary intonation-bodily empathy. Attempts to separate the bodily reactions of perception from consciousness, to bring them into the realm of the unconscious, which creates obstacles to perception, should be considered as untenable. Auditory-motor actions, including gestures, facial expressions, pantomimics, kinesics, and other bodily manifestations, are nothing more than the unified languages of music, the techniques of nonverbal sound communication peculiar to humans. The system «music-body-consciousness» generates intonation-sound associations of an artistic type, emphasizing the synergetic essence of musical perception, openness to self-completion, resonant spiritual response, actualizing auditory attention. Motor reactions are an essential factor in the emergence of artistic associations, musical thinking, and reflection. The mechanisms of musical perception linked with sensorimotor responses to the intonation of music. In this case, muscle activity acts as a mediating link between sensory responses and emotions transmitted in music. They are associated with the simplest semantic elements of musical perception. Musical perception is based on the synthesis of thought and feeling, spiritual and physical, and aesthetic experiences do not arise spontaneously, like physiological reactions. They are the result of painstaking spiritual and physical work, a symbiosis of artistic imagination and creative imagination, which determine the culture of musical perception of a person. It is impossible to find the experience of empathy, emotional responses to the meaning of music as self-expression of another person's soul, without working them through the mechanisms of bodily perception, which, in fact, is the main pathos of music education. Spiritual and bodily perception of music provides a unique opportunity to feel the present, the real presence in it, the coordination of personal life aspirations with the humanistic attitudes of art culture. Pedagogical comprehension of spiritual and bodily processes expands the possibilities of educating musical perception in secondary schools, overcoming the deficit of theoretical knowledge about music, skills of analysis of musical works, saturation of classes in search of personal meanings in art.