Background: Long-term exposure to road traffic noise is associated with the prevalence of hypertension. To understand more about this exposure-response relationship, it is essential to examine this...Show moreBackground: Long-term exposure to road traffic noise is associated with the prevalence of hypertension. To understand more about this exposure-response relationship, it is essential to examine this association with baseline blood pressure measurements. However, theories of possible mechanisms explaining the chronic physiological effects of road traffic noise exposure are limited. Furthermore, the findings of epidemiological studies investigating this relationship are inconsistent and different factors seem to influence the strength of the relationship. A critical evaluation of these studies seems warranted. Purpose: This study aims to gain more theoretical and empirical insight into the association between road traffic noise and resting blood pressure measurements. Methods: Web of Science, PubMed and reference lists were used. Six articles were included, consisting of information about ten studies. A meta-analysis on the association between road traffic noise and blood pressure among adults was performed. The ten effect size estimates were based on the data of 146,339 subjects in total. Results: A 0.195 mmHg (95% CI: 0.004, 0.386) higher systolic blood pressure per 10 dB increase was found. Road traffic noise was not associated with diastolic blood pressure. However, the sensitivity analysis revealed stronger associations with diastolic blood pressure for high-quality studies and stronger associations with systolic blood pressure for nighttime noise exposure. Conclusion: Long-term exposure to road traffic noise had a significant positive association with systolic blood pressure, perhaps strongest at night, and a nonsignificant positive association with diastolic blood pressure. The significant moderating effect of study quality on diastolic blood pressure is a possible explanation for this inconsistency. Further research is required to get a more comprehensive understanding of the association between road traffic noise and blood pressure.Show less
For over a decade, Basque artist Mattin has worked collaboratively to make improvised noise concerts characterised by clusters of silence, scything feedback howls, and haunting shrieks, which are...Show moreFor over a decade, Basque artist Mattin has worked collaboratively to make improvised noise concerts characterised by clusters of silence, scything feedback howls, and haunting shrieks, which are produced digitally with guitar, amongst other instruments. Often improvising with a an invited set of guests, Mattin’s noise concerts create situations of instability and uncertainty, and perhaps even a sense of danger, through the drama of his aesthetic which antagonises his audience, forcing them to become active participants whether they are willing or not. By engaging collaborators and audience alike, Mattin uses his noise concerts as a tactic to activate a shared state of political agony in a period of Western capitalist society’s demise. Operating at the borders of noise music as a genre, Mattin’s improvisation practice is supplemented by his exploratory writings on improvisation and the importance of free software – a position he claims against the perils of intellectual property, defying any sense of ownership or property we may have. Mattin has over seventy albums attributed to him under several labels around the world, and has also independently founded the experimental record labels w.m.o/r and Free Software Series, as well as the net-based label, Desetxea. He releases and distributes his music under the no-license of anti-copyright, which further ramifies his political methods that are non-conformist and non-profit. Problematising the occularcentric tendencies within art history, which privilege the visual over the sonic, this paper investigates Mattin's practice in terms of his own doctrine of noise practice, situating it as worthy of analysis within this disciplinary frame. Centering on Mattin’s contemporary practice I will investigate what is at stake in his quest to “cuts things up” and will do so by identifying a wider historical and socio-political context for his practice, touching on rock history and a number of other conceptual artistic practices. Through this lens, I will examine the political efficacy of Mattin’s methods in challenging authorial status; the relationship between performer and audience; as well as how such socially-inclined art practices can engage and contribute to the struggle against our commodified mode of existence.Show less
This report presents a first attempt to introduce noise into the protocol of reference-frame- independent quantum key distribution. It is found that a frequently accepted manner to introduce noise,...Show moreThis report presents a first attempt to introduce noise into the protocol of reference-frame- independent quantum key distribution. It is found that a frequently accepted manner to introduce noise, according to the model of Eckert et al. proposed in ref. [1] leads to non-physical state matrices and therefore another model is proposed: the $\beta_{\pi}$-noise model. In this model the basis states composing the state matrix are perturbed by a complex quantity. For pure states this approach is applied to all state matrix elements, whereas for mixed states it is applied only to the diagonal elements. The off-diagonal elements in the mixed state are perturbed by a complex quantity that is independent of the perturbations on the basis states that the matrix element consists of. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, statistics on the quantum bit error rate as well as the transverse correlation factor are obtained for this model. However, although the $\beta_{\pi}$-noise model solves the main issues that lead to the conclusion that the model of Eckert et al. might infer non-physical state matrices, it does not yet guarantee the state matrix is always physical: a mixed state may still violate positive semi-definiteness. Therefore the original model is improved by perturbing all basis states as before and using this approach for all state matrix elements. In this improved version of the $\beta_{\pi}$-noise model Eve is present as a (complex) scaling of the off-diagonal state matrix elements. Thus, positive semi-definiteness is guaranteed for this noise model. Also for this improved version of the model statistics on the quantum bit error rate and the transverse correlation factor are presented, thereby describing the implications on an experiment.Show less
