Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arises when the brain receives and perceives a sound.
Elevator music is a type of background music played in elevators, in rooms where many people come together for reasons other than listening to music, and during telephone calls when placed on hold. There is no specific sound associated with elevator music, but it usually involves simple instrumental themes from "soft" popular music, or "light" classical music being performed by slow strings. This type of music was produced, for instance, by the Mantovani Orchestra, and conductors such as Franck Pourcel and James Last, peaking in popularity around the 1970s.
Noise pollution, or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise or sound with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of which are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport and propagation systems. Poor urban planning may give rise to noise disintegration or pollution, side-by-side industrial and residential buildings can result in noise pollution in the residential areas. Some of the main sources of noise in residential areas include loud music, transportation, lawn care maintenance, construction, electrical generators, wind turbines, explosions and people.
Environmental noise is an accumulation of noise pollution that occurs outside. This noise can be caused by transport, industrial, and recreational activities.
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments. The name has been in use since 1934 and has been owned by various companies.
Aircraft noise pollution refers to noise produced by aircraft in flight that has been associated with several negative stress-mediated health effects, from sleep disorders to cardiovascular ones. Governments have enacted extensive controls that apply to aircraft designers, manufacturers, and operators, resulting in improved procedures and cuts in pollution.
(BGM) Background music is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behavioral and emotional responses in humans such as concentration, relaxation, distraction, and excitement. Listeners are uniquely subject to background music with no control over its volume and content. The range of responses created are of great variety, and even opposite, depending on numerous factors such as, setting, culture, audience, and even time of day.
A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth, and popularised by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology to computer science. An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the broader acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources, natural and artificial, within a given area as modified by the environment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized these definitions in 2014.
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), known as Action on Hearing Loss from 2011 to 2020, is a charitable organization working on behalf of the UK's 9 million people who are deaf or have hearing loss.
Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, is the cumulative effect of aging on hearing. It is a progressive and irreversible bilateral symmetrical age-related sensorineural hearing loss resulting from degeneration of the cochlea or associated structures of the inner ear or auditory nerves. The hearing loss is most marked at higher frequencies. Hearing loss that accumulates with age but is caused by factors other than normal aging is not presbycusis, although differentiating the individual effects of distinct causes of hearing loss can be difficult.
Noise control or noise mitigation is a set of strategies to reduce noise pollution or to reduce the impact of that noise, whether outdoors or indoors.
Noise health effects are the physical and psychological health consequences of regular exposure to consistent elevated sound levels. Noise from traffic, in particular, is considered by the World Health Organization to be one of the worst environmental stressors for humans, second only to air pollution. Elevated workplace or environmental noise can cause hearing impairment, tinnitus, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, annoyance, and sleep disturbance. Changes in the immune system and birth defects have been also attributed to noise exposure.
Roadway noise is the collective sound energy emanating from motor vehicles. It consists chiefly of road surface, tire, engine/transmission, aerodynamic, and braking elements. Noise of rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise and increases with higher vehicle speeds.
Guest House is a 1991 Pakistani comedy-drama series directed by Rauf Khalid which was produced and shown by PTV in the early to mid-1990s. The setting is a fictional guest house named Guest House located in a posh area of Islamabad. It is run by Mr. Shameem and his wife with the help of three permanent regular employees, Naveed, Murad and Rambo.
Don't Lose the Music is a national campaign launched by RNID, the charity representing the 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK.
Acoustic quieting is the process of making machinery quieter by damping vibrations to prevent them from reaching the observer. Machinery vibrates, causing sound waves in air, hydroacoustic waves in water, and mechanical stresses in solid matter. Quieting is achieved by absorbing the vibrational energy or minimizing the source of the vibration. It may also be redirected away from the observer.
Environmental Protection UK is a UK environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) working to improve the quality of the local environment - specialising in the subjects of air quality, noise management and land quality. It was formerly known as the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA), changing its name 2007, to reflect ongoing work in fields beyond air quality.
Noise Free America is a national, non-profit organization aimed at reducing noise pollution in the community. The organization's main target is noise from boom cars, leaf blowers, motorcycles, and car alarms. Noise Free America has a 501(c)(3) non-profit status and has chapters in 27 states across the U.S. Its headquarters are located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Spatial hearing loss refers to a form of deafness that is an inability to use spatial cues about where a sound originates from in space. Poor sound localization in turn affects the ability to understand speech in the presence of background noise.
Airlink was the brand name of a helicopter shuttle service which ran between London's two main airports, Gatwick and Heathrow, between 1978 and 1986. Operated jointly by British Caledonian Airways and British Airways Helicopters using a Sikorsky S-61 owned by the British Airports Authority, the "curious and unique operation" connected the rapidly growing airports in the years before the M25 motorway existed. Although at one point the service was granted a licence to operate until 1994, the Secretary of State for Transport intervened and revoked the licence with effect from February 1986—by which time the continued existence of the link had become "a highly controversial issue" debated by Members of Parliament, airlines, airport operators, local authorities and many other interest groups. No similar service has operated between the airports since Airlink's cessation.
