Singing in the city: Trade-offs between signal salience and vocal performance in the presence of anthropogenic noise

2019 ◽  
Vol 146 (4) ◽  
pp. 2895-2896
Author(s):  
Jennifer N. Phillips ◽  
David Luther ◽  
Elizabeth Derryberry
Keyword(s):  
Anthropogenic Noise ◽  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Signal Salience ◽  
The City

scholarly journals Modeling Energy Communities with Collective Photovoltaic Self-Consumption: Synergies between a Small City and a Winery in Portugal

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 323
Author(s):  
Guilherme Pontes Luz ◽  
Rodrigo Amaro e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Small City ◽  
Total System ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Southern Portugal ◽  
Energy Community ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Modest Reduction

The recently approved regulation on Energy Communities in Europe is paving the way for new collective forms of energy consumption and production, mainly based on photovoltaics. However, energy modeling approaches that can adequately evaluate the impact of these new regulations on energy community configurations are still lacking, particularly with regards to the grid tariffs imposed on collective systems. Thus, the present work models three different energy community configurations sustained on collective photovoltaics self-consumption for a small city in southern Portugal. This energy community, which integrates the city consumers and a local winery, was modeled using the Python-based Calliope framework. Using real electricity demand data from power transformers and an actual winery, the techno-economic feasibility of each configuration was assessed. Results show that all collective arrangements can promote a higher penetration of photovoltaic capacity (up to 23%) and a modest reduction in the overall cost of electricity (up to 8%). However, there are clear trade-offs between the different pathways: more centralized configurations have 53% lower installation costs but are more sensitive to grid use costs (which can represent up to 74% of the total system costs). Moreover, key actor’s individual self-consumption rate may decrease by 10% in order to benefit the energy community as a whole.

scholarly journals Green(er) Cities and Their Citizens: Insights from the Participatory Budget of Lisbon

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8243
Author(s):  
Roberto Falanga ◽  
Jessica Verheij ◽  
Olivia Bina
Keyword(s):  
Public Funding ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
City Council ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
Participatory Budget ◽  
The City

There is rising scholarly and political interest in participatory budgets and their potential to advance urban sustainability. This article aims to contribute to this field of study through the specific lens of the city of Lisbon’s experience as an internationally acknowledged leader in participatory budgeting. To this end, the article critically examines the lessons and potential contribution of the Lisbon Participatory Budget through a multimethod approach. Emerging trends and variations of citizen proposals, projects, votes, and public funding are analysed in tandem with emerging key topics that show links and trade-offs between locally embedded participation and the international discourse on urban sustainability. Our analysis reveals three interconnected findings: first, the achievements of the Lisbon Participatory Budget show the potential to counteract the dominant engineered approach to urban sustainability; second, trends and variations of the achievements depend on both citizens’ voice and the significant influence of the city council through policymaking; and, third, the shift towards a thematic Green Participatory Budget in 2020 was not driven by consolidated social and political awareness on the achievements, suggesting that more could be achieved through the 2021 urban sustainability oriented Participatory Budget. We conclude recommending that this kind of analysis should be systematically carried out and disseminated within city council departments, promoting much needed internal awareness of PBs’ potential as drivers of urban sustainability. We also identify further research needed into the sustainability potential of green PBs.

scholarly journals ANALYSIS OF THE CONSUMERS PREFERENCES OF LIPSTICK PRODUCT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SEGMENTATION OF THE LIPSTICK PRODUCTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (02) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Mohammad Wartaka
Keyword(s):  
Conjoint Analysis ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
New Product ◽  
Quality Attributes ◽  
Global Brands ◽  
Importance Weight ◽  
Income Sources ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

The need for lipstick continues to increase along with the emergence of a new lipstick products both domestic and global brands to follow the needs of its consumers, the new product has a variety of functions other than just as a lip color, but also as a moisturizer / lip protection even as treatment. Adult lipstick is packed with advertisements and packaging are very interesting addition to the color choice of more and more. In determining the selection of lipstick products consumers often consider the combination of the main attributes and other factors that are trade-offs. This study aims to determine the attributes and combination of attributes among the most preferred by consumers for a segment of the age and the amount of income. Sources of data in this study were obtained from 138 respondents in the city of Bogor and its surroundings, conjoint analysis is used to determine the usefulness of each attribute and their relative weights as a tool to predict the preferences of a particular segment or as a whole. The results showed the order of importance weight according to the respondents is that the quality attributes (34.95%), the type of color (33.21%) and benefits (31.84%), while the combination of the most preferred products are: lipstick durable / waterproof, according to skin color, and functioning for moisturizing / protective lip. In the description also delivered conjoin analysis results for each age and income segments.

Managing Contentious Collective Action

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Calla Hummel
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Street Vendor ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

Chapter 5 develops an ethnography of street vendors, their organizations, and the city officials who they interact with in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. The chapter is based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the city over four research trips in 2012, 2014 to 2015, 2018, and 2019 as well as administrative data on 31,906 street vending licenses in the city. Fieldwork included interviews, participant observation at dozens of meetings between bureaucrats and organized vendors, ride-alongs with the Municipal Guard, a street vendor survey, working as a street vendor in a clothing market, and selling wedding services with a street vendor cooperative. The theory’s observable implications are illustrated with ethnographic evidence, survey results, and license data from La Paz. I discuss how street vending has changed in the city and how officials have intervened in collective action decisions as the informal sector grew. The chapter demonstrates that officials increased benefits to organized vendors as the costs of regulating markets increased. Additionally, the leaders that take advantage of these offers tend to have more resources than their colleagues, and as the offers increased, so did the level of organization among the city’s street vendors. The chapter also discusses the many trade-offs that officials make in implementing different policies, and how officials manage the often combative organizations that they encourage.

scholarly journals Territory Quality Predicts Avian Vocal Performance Across an Urban-Rural Gradient

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer N. Phillips ◽  
W. Justin Cooper ◽  
David A. Luther ◽  
Elizabeth P. Derryberry
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Body Condition ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Anthropogenic Noise ◽  
Maximum Height ◽  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
And Performance

Human activity around the globe is a growing source of selection pressure on animal behavior and communication systems. Some animals can modify their vocalizations to avoid masking from anthropogenic noise. However, such modifications can also affect the salience of these vocalizations in functional contexts such as competition and mate choice. Such is the case in the well-studied Nuttall's white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli), which lives year-round in both urban San Francisco and nearby rural Point Reyes. A performance feature of this species' song is salient in territorial defense, such that higher performance songs elicit stronger responses in simulated territorial intrusions; but songs with lower performance values transmit better in anthropogenic noise. A key question then is whether vocal performance signals male quality and ability to obtain high quality territories in urban populations. We predicted white-crowned sparrows with higher vocal performance will be in better condition and will tend to hold territories with lower noise levels and more species-preferred landscape features. Because white-crowned sparrows are adapted to coastal scrub habitats, we expect high quality territories to contain lower and less dense canopies, less drought, more greenness, and more flat open ground for foraging. To test our predictions, we recorded songs and measured vocal performance and body condition (scaled mass index and fat score) for a set of urban and rural birds (N = 93), as well as ambient noise levels on their territories. Remote sensing metrics measured landscape features of territories, such as drought stress (NDWI), greenness (NDVI), mean canopy height, maximum height, leaf area density (understory and canopy), slope, and percent bare ground for a 50 m radius on each male territory. We did not find a correlation between body condition and performance but did find a relationship between noise levels and performance. Further, high performers held territories with lower canopies and less dense vegetation, which are species-preferred landscape features. These findings link together fundamental aspects of sexual selection in that habitat quality and the quality of sexually selected signals appear to be associated: males that have the highest performing songs are defending territories of the highest quality.

scholarly journals Courtesan Singers as Courtiers: Power, Political Pawns, and the Arrest of virtuosa Nina Barcarola

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-267
Author(s):  
Amy Brosius
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Symbolic Extension ◽  
Male Dependents ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

This article gives a close reading of the “avvisi di Roma”—unpublished archival documents reporting on daily life in the city—that record the arrest in 1645 of famous Roman courtesan singer Nina Barcarola. Organized by the political enemies of Nina's main protector, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, the arrest was orchestrated so as to compromise the public honor of both. The reports of the arrest reflect a growing elite interest in female vocal performance in Rome, and attest to a rise in the social value of courtesan singers. Examining details provided in these reports, the article explores various aspects of Nina's life and courtesan singing culture more generally: the public honor and social practices of courtesan singers; the positive effect of singing on courtesan honor; the types of gatherings hosted by Nina; and her politically satirical public performances. It also analyzes Nina's relationship to various areas of contemporary politics—social, state, familial, and gender. The reports reveal that, in the public sphere, Nina, like Barberini's male dependents, served as a symbolic extension of the cardinal. By introducing courtesan singers—a significant, marginalized population—into musicological discourse on seventeenth-century Rome, the article broadens our understanding of Roman singing culture in this period.

scholarly journals Network design for quantifying urban CO<sub>2</sub> emissions: Assessing trade-offs between precision and network density

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Turner ◽  
Alexis A. Shusterman ◽  
Brian C. McDonald ◽  
Virginia Teige ◽  
Robert A Harley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Urban Region ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Industrial Facilities ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Combined Uncertainty ◽  
The City

Abstract. The majority of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are attributable to urban areas. While the emissions from urban electricity generation often occur in locations remote from consumption, many of the other emissions occur within the city limits. Evaluating the effectiveness of strategies for controlling these emissions depends on our ability to observe urban CO2 emissions and attribute them to specific activities. Cost effective strategies for doing so have yet to be described. Here we characterize the ability of a prototype measurement network, modeled after the BEACO2N network, in combination with an inverse model based on WRF-STILT to improve our understanding of urban emissions. The pseudo-measurement network includes 34 sites at roughly 2 km spacing covering an area of roughly 400 km2. The model uses an hourly 1 × 1 km2 emission inventory and 1 × 1 km2 meteorological calculations. We perform an ensemble of Bayesian atmospheric inversions to sample the combined effects of uncertainties of the pseudo-measurements and the model. We vary the estimates of the combined uncertainty of the pseudo-observations and model over a range of 20 ppm to 0.005 ppm and vary the number of sites from 1 to 34. We use these inversions to develop statistical models that estimate the efficacy of the combined model-observing system at reducing uncertainty in CO2 emissions. We examine uncertainty in estimated CO2 fluxes at the urban scale, as well as for sources embedded within the city such as a line source (e.g., a highway) or a point source (e.g., emissions from the stacks of small industrial facilities). We find that a dense network with moderate precision is the preferred setup for estimating area, line, and point sources from a combined uncertainty and cost perspective. The dense network considered here could estimate weekly CO2 emissions from an urban region with less than 5 % error, given our characterization of the combined observation and model uncertainty.

scholarly journals An analysis of avian vocal performance at the note and song levels

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Logue ◽  
Jacob A. Sheppard ◽  
Bailey Walton ◽  
Benjamin E. Brinkman ◽  
Orlando J. Medina
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Modulation ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Song Structure ◽  
Performance Constraints ◽  
Physiological Limits ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Song Types ◽  
Level Performance

AbstractSexual displays that require extreme feats of physiological performance have the potential to reliably indicate the signaller’s skill. The hypothesis that the structure of bird song is physiologically constrained remains controversial. We tested for evidence of performance constraints in Adelaide’s warblers (Setophaga adelaidae) songs. At the note level, we identified three trade-offs with well-defined limits. At the song level, we identified two trade-offs, but their limits were less well-defined than the note-level limits. Trade-offs at both levels suggest that song structure is constrained by limits to the speed of both frequency modulation (while vocalizing and between notes) and respiration. Individual males experience the same trade-offs that characterize the population, but the intensity of those trade-offs varies among individuals. Performance metrics derived from the observed limits to performance varied moderately among individuals and strongly among song types. Note-level performance metrics were positively skewed, as predicted by the hypothesis that this population has experienced positive selection for constrained performance. We conclude that physiological limits on frequency modulation and respiration constrain song structure in male Adelaide’s warblers. Further work is needed to determine whether receivers respond to natural levels of variation in performance, and whether performance correlates with singer quality.

scholarly journals Not so sexy in the city: urban birds adjust songs to noise but compromise vocal performance

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 332-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Luther ◽  
Jennifer Phillips ◽  
Elizabeth P. Derryberry
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Performance ◽  
Urban Birds ◽  
The City
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