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Acoustic design
Acoustic design
The concept of “acoustic design” majorly refers to a system of acoustic communication that is soundscape and tries to determine the way it functions. This paper seeks to provide information on acoustic design and how it applies to real life situations. The main aspects to be taken into consideration are the proposals by Barry Truax. The paper will majorly pick up some quotes used by Truax to explain what he is trying to pass across and how the same can be applied in life.
“The balanced soundscape is vulnerable to change just as it is to noise.”
In this quote, Truax is trying to put across the point that the forces which control sounds balance are prone to change. This is because there are situations such as change in population which bring about changes in the soundscape.
“Variety in the incoming information, however, must be balanced by its being understood as meaningful in order for communication to be effective.”
This is one of the quotes from Truax’s work. In this case, he is trying to bring into attention the fact that in order for communication to be effective, the intended information ought to be in order (Schafer, 1993). This is because too much unordered information is similar to too little information. This gives a clear impression that such information is useless to the brain.
“Environmental noise, as we have discussed already, is not only meaningless itself to the listener, but also obscures the information of other sounds.”
Truax is trying to put across the point that environmental sounds that are so high tend to reduce the degree of hearing. This means that reduction in listening makes it impossible for the listeners to hear the intended message.
Generally soundscape balance has to be altered in relation to changes taking place to make sure that communication is effective (Thompson, 2004). Information being passed on at the same time ought to be in order so that the listeners can understand the content. Rules and regulations have to be put in place as well to make certain that environmental noise is regulated for the purpose of avoiding disruption. Implementation of these strategies generally makes it possible for communication to be effective (Hirschkind, 2013).
References
Hirschkind, C. (2013). The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Schafer, R. M. (1993). The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Turning of the World. United States: Inner Traditions Bear.
Thompson, E. (2004). The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge: MIT Press.
The Weary Blues
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The Weary Blues
The weary blues is a poem by Langston Hughes. It portrays the difficult times experienced by the black Americans and their inability to find joy and satisfaction within American society. Therefore, for this artist, the best way to express their emotions and what they feel is through music. It was a performance of blues music in Lenox avenue in Harlem. The poem uses free verse and mimics the tone of the blues music as well as its form. It is dated 1925 when the Harlem renaissance was in place. This was when black American and African American music was gaining popularity and acceptance in the United States to a great extent. Therefore this paper discusses this pome from an analytical point of view.
In its first line, the author states that the music is syncopated and drowsy. This means that the accents, the beat, and the poem’s rhyme do not follow each other intentionally. The lazy sway to and fro from his rickety stool creates a disturbing image for the reader because it displays and how disturbed the player was and how he wanted to express himself through the music. The first few lines establish a single speaker. The speaker is likely a member of the audience at this point. The pome also mentions the geographical location of the setting of the pome, which is a known haven for jazz music and blues. This means, therefore, the performer is in the right place, and he not only performs because it is blues but also performs to express his central theme in the poem, which is the fact that he is a black man and his worries and problems are very many (Davis, 279).
‘He did a lazy sway,’ this is a line which the author repeats twice, and it means that the performer was in performance at this particular point. Not just performance, the performer might have been overwhelmed by his black nature and how society was unfair to him. Therefore, instead of continuing with the music, he finds himself unable to sing as his mind is fixed on one thing only.’ In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone, this verse is used to portray the beauty of the music as the performer makes the piano moan in musical beats backing up his performance to a great deal. Therefore, the beauty of the piece is used to express the deep secrets and feelings of the performer as he states that he got nobody to tell his troubles. This, therefore, means that it is still the issue of segregation in society and that black Americans are not that much valued.
He clearly states that he puts his troubles on the shelf and saves his energy from telling people who do not care. He says that he only got himself, and he has got no one to share his problems and be a part of. This is very sad, and it shows how black Americans are treated and how society had become cruel by not listening to its own but at the same time listening to the musical performance and enjoying it.
‘Thump, thump, thump’ portrays how his performance goes along with his many vocals and instruments as he fits them together in the music perfectly and brings out a rhythm. This last part of the poem still stresses the person’s issue is not accepted and not even accepting himself due to the lack of appreciation by the rest of the world. Therefore the poem ends with bitterness and darkness. He states that he got nobody except the weary blues, and even with the weary blues, he cannot be satisfied. He even wishes he was dead, and in this, the reader realizes the depression which has been with the person represented in the poem.
The poem ends with the disappearance of the moon and the stars. The stars are the first to get lost while the moon follows. This, therefore this means that darkness is the whole story of this person. He is in the dark, whereby society does not understand him and has not accepted him as part of it. With the darkness and lack of vision as portrayed, the performer gets tired not only physically but also in his soul’s spirit and has to rest. The sleeping may signify death, as he mentioned earlier that he wishes to die. Therefore with society not accepting him and darkness roaming around him, he might stop singing and have a rest as he dies. However, this can also mean that it is a night of normal sound sleep.
Works Cited
Davis, Arthur P. “The Harlem of Langston Hughes’ Poetry.” Phylon (1940-1956) 13.4 (1952): 276-283.
Hughes, Langston. The weary blues. Knopf, 2015.
Acinar Cell Carcinoma of the Pancreas
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Acinar Cell Carcinoma of the Pancreas
Acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas, also acinar cell carcinoma, is a rare malignant exocrine tumor of the pancreas. It represents 5% of all exocrine tumors of the pancreas, making it the second most common type of pancreatic cancer. It is abbreviated ACC. Acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas is a rare neoplasm, comprising 1-2 % of exocrine pancreatic tumors (Solcia 7). The tumor most commonly occurs in middle-aged or elderly Caucasian men.
Patients may present with vague abdominal pain, or the mass may be found incidentally. Patients (up to 15%) can also present with widespread subcutaneous fat necrosis, polyarthritis, and eosinophilia (Schmidt’s triad) due to increased circulating lipase secreted by the tumor (Solcia, Ashley and Lauwers 22). Acinar cell carcinomas can involve the head or tail of the pancreas. They are usually well circumscribed, partly encapsulated, pink to tan, homogeneous fleshy mass, averaging 11 cm in greatest diameter, occasionally demonstrating extensive hemorrhage and necrosis (Klimstra DS 92). Microscopically, most tumors are highly cellular with minimal stroma and lack the stromal desmoplasia commonly seen with ductal adenocarcinomas. Four patterns of growth have been described (Klimstra DS.)
The disease is more common in men than women are and the average age at diagnosis is about 60. Symptoms are often non- specific and include weight loss. A classic presentation, found in around 15% of cases includes subcutaneous nodules (due to fat necrosis) and arthralgias, caused by release of lipase. The change in exocrine mass is an important parameter to follow in experimental models of pancreatic injury and regeneration. However, at present, the quantitative assessment of exocrine content by histology is tedious and operator-dependent, requiring manual assessment of acinar area on serial pancreatic sections. In this study, we utilized a novel computer-generated learning algorithm to construct an accurate and rapid method of quantifying Acinar content.
The algorithm works by learning differences in pixel characteristics from input examples provided by human experts. HE-stained pancreatic sections were obtained in mice recovering from a 2-day, hourly caerulein hyperstimulation model of experimental pancreatitis. For training data, a pathologist carefully outlined discrete regions of Acinar and non-Acinar tissue in 21 sections at various stages of pancreatic injury and recovery termed the “ground truth”. After the expert defined the ground truth, the computer was able to develop a prediction rule that was then applied to a unique set of high- resolution images in order to validate the process. For baseline, non- injured pancreatic sections, the software demonstrated close agreement with the ground truth in identifying baseline Acinar tissue area with only a difference of 1%±0.05% (p = 0.21
The Acinar pattern is present in most tumors, often admixed with trabecular and glandular patterns; the solid pattern is also often seen. The tumor cells resemble normal pancreatic acinar cells. The nuclei are round to oval, with only mild pleomorphism and single prominent nucleoli. The cytoplasm tends to be abundant, eosinophilic, and granular due to zymogen granules, which are PAS-positive and diastase-resistant, but in the solid tumors, PAS positivity may be scant. Mitotic activity is variable, form rare mitoses to >50 per 10 HPF. In the present case, the differential diagnosis, based on morphology, included an acinar cell carcinoma and a pancreatic endocrine tumor because the pattern of growth was mostly solid with rare areas of acinar type structures. However, the lack of classic “salt and pepper” chromatin distribution and the presence of prominent single nucleoli are unusual for endocrine neoplasms.
Since normal pancreatic acinar cells secrete pancreatic enzymes, the most useful histochemical and/or immunohistochemical stains for acinar cell carcinoma are for the pancreatic enzymes, such as trypsin, chymotrypsin, amylase, elastase, and lipase. When the neoplastic cells exhibit nuclear polarity, these stains usually demonstrate positivity in the apical portions of the cells, while the stains are more focal and usually restricted to single cells in tumors with solid patterns. Tumor cells that are positive for synaptophysin and chromogranin A can be found in 30-50% of cases (Notohara 20).
Usually they occur in tumors with a solid pattern, where they are scattered throughout the tissue. Although only a small number of cases with synaptophysin immunohistochemistry have been reported, the diffuse positive staining for synaptophysin in our case appears to be uncommon for Acinar cell carcinoma and is a potential pitfall, thus emphasizing the need to perform the stains to demonstrate positivity for at least one pancreatic enzyme.
Ultra structural studies of Acinar cell carcinomas have demonstrated a resemblance to normal pancreatic Acinar cells with well-developed endoplasmic reticulum and zymogen granules (mean diameter 400-500nm), which are commonly oriented toward the luminal space. An interesting finding in Acinar cell carcinomas is the presence of membrane- bound filamentous inclusions, which are thought to be within the spectrum of zymogen granules (Tucker JA et al., 1994, Chong JM et al., 1996, and Ordonez NG et al., 2000). Similar inclusions have only rarely been identified in endocrine tumors (Ordonez NG et al., 2001), therefore, these inclusions may serve as an ultra-structural marker in the diagnosis of Acinar cell carcinomas.
Acinar cell carcinomas are aggressive tumors and most patients die from their cancer within a mean of 18 months after diagnosis and a 5 year survival of 5.9%; however, the overall survival is better than pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Klimstra 12). Younger patients (less than 60 years old) and patients with tumors less than 10 cm tend to have longer survival than patients over 60 years do or with larger tumors. Patients who present with symptoms of elevated lipase do much worse.
Resection is the treatment of choice, with or without chemo radiation therapy, and metastases may be present at the time of diagnosis. In summary, we presented a case of pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma with an almost exclusively solid growth pattern. While the tumor showed, some immunophenotypic evidence of endocrine cell differentiation, clinical, histologic, and electron microscopic features, along with the positive immunostaining for trypsin, was all consistent with acinar cell carcinoma.
In conclusion, although the most common cells in the pancreas are the acinar cells, malignant transformation of these cells is very rare. Pancreatic adenocarcinomas, derived from epithelial cells lining the pancreatic ducts are the most common pancreatic malignancy followed by neuroendocrine tumors; with Acinar cell carcinomas (ACC) of the pancreas representing less than 1% of all pancreatic tumors. Patients with ACC are more likely to present at a younger age and with earlier stage tumors as compared to patients with the more common and deadlier pancreatic adenocarcinomas. ACC affects males more commonly than females.
There are also significant differences in the clinical presentation of ACC as compared to pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Contrary to pancreatic adenocarcinoma cases, patients with early stage ACC frequently present with abdominal pain and bloating as the dominant symptoms. Occasionally, ACC tumors produce excessive lipase causing systemic fat necrosis 9 -16. Clinical manifestations of this syndrome of fat necrosis can include panniculitis, discrete skin lesions and subcutaneous nodules. Pathologic fractures related to intraosseus necrosis have been described as well. Laboratory abnormalities include elevated serum lipase levels, eosinophilia, and occasionally elevated serum alpha-fetoprotein levels.
Because of the rarity of this malignancy, studies have primarily consisted of retrospective chart reviews and case reports. Very limited data are available about effective systemic treatments for patients with recurrent, unresectable or metastatic disease. The rarity of the disease has thus far precluded systematic approach to treatment through clinical trials, and only a handful of retrospective reviews and case reports describing empiric treatments have been published.
Works cited
Ashley SW, Lauwers GY. Case Records of The Massachusetts General Hospital. Weekly Clinic Pathological Exercises. Case 37-2002. A 69-Year-Old Man with Painful Cutaneous Nodules, Elevated Lipase Levels, And Abnormal Results On Abdominal Scanning. N Engl J Med. 2002 Nov 28; 347(22): 1783-91.
Chong JM, Fukayama M, Shiozawa Y, Hayashi Y, Funata N, Takizawa T, Koike M. Fibrillary Inclusions In Neoplastic And Fetal Acinar Cells Of The Pancreas. Virchows Arch. 1996 Jul; 428(4-5): 261-6.
Hoorens A, Lemoine NR, Mclellan E, Morohoshi T, Kamisawa T, Heitz PU, Stamm B, Ruschoff J, Wiedenmann B, Kloppel G. Pancreatic Acinar Cell Carcinoma. An Analysis Of Cell Lineage Markers, P53 Expression, And Ki-Ras Mutation. Am J Pathol. 1993 Sep; 143(3): 685-98.
Eisses JF, Davis AW, Tosun AB, Dionise ZR, Chen C, Et Al.(2014) A Computer-Based Automated Algorithm For Assessing Acinar Cell Loss After Experimental Pancreatitis. Plos ONE 9(10)