[E386]Listen up|经济学人
本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist《经济学人》2016年第13期，Science and technology版块。
Urban planning
How to map city soundscapes using social media
Mar 26th 2016
“VIBRANT” is a word often used in guide books to describe a particular quarter of a city: Soho, in London[1], for example. But what does that actually mean? To Daniele Quercia of Bell Labs[2] in Cambridge, England, and his colleagues, the term has a literal truth[3] to it. Soho is a place of good vibrations through the air—good sounds, in other words. It shares this with the Gothic quarter of Barcelona[4], for example, but not with much of Mayfair and Belgravia, upmarket London districts[5] near Soho that Dr Quercia brands sonically “chaotic”[6].
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注释
[1]SOHO区是由牛津街、查理十字街、Shaffesbury街和摄政街共同包围着的一个方形区域。今天伦敦SOHO这个世界性的社区是伦敦的夜生活中心。
[2]Bell Labs 贝尔实验室
[3]simple truth, naked truth, plain truth
[4]巴塞罗那的哥特区 (巴塞罗那老城的中心)
[5]梅费尔（Mayfair）是英国伦敦市中心的一个区域，位于威斯敏斯特市内。
贝尔格莱维亚区Belgravia，伦敦的上流住宅区
[6]brand (verb)，做记号，标记。Dr Quercia在声音上给Mayfair和Belgravia标上了chaotic嘈杂的记号。
[注]从后文可知该研究为城市制作了sound maps，对各个地区发出的声音进行标记，从上图中可以看出分为chaotic calm monotonous vibrant几类。
详细可以复制右边链接用浏览器打开查看Sound maps：http://t.cn/Rq79IZn
生词
▷vibrant ['vaɪbrənt]
, and of
活跃的；精力充沛的；热情洋溢的a vibrant 充满朝气的年轻演员a vibrant 活泼的个性a vibrant 充满活力的城市The is that this will into a vibrant .希望这个地区会发展成为一个活跃的商业中心。
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He and his colleagues, who report their results in Royal Society Open Science this week, have been making sound maps of the two cities. In so far as city planners incorporate matters sonic into their thinking, Dr Quercia notes, they take most notice of noise. This form of sound, being by definition annoying, has political resonance, and planners do their best to minimise it. But sound can also be soothing, exhilarating, saddening, surprising and many other things besides. These aspects of the urban soundscape are little-studied. Dr Quercia thinks this is a pity. The spread of information technology, and in particular of social media, has created a pool of data about urban sounds that can be tagged to precise locations. That has let him and his team start correcting the omission.
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生词
▷ sonic ['sɒnɪk]
of or the at which in
声音的；声速的
▷ resonance ['rezənəns] a , , , that a of writing or makes you have, or the in a of writing, which makes this 共鸣(一个作品或一曲音乐使你具有的感情、思想、回忆等，或作品或乐曲中使这种情况发生的特质)This has many resonances for me.这首诗使我浮想联翩。 （声音）洪亮的，响亮的，回响的，回声的 ▷ soothing ['suːðɪŋ]
making you
安慰的，使人平静的I put on some soothing .我放了一些美妙舒缓的音乐。Her words had a soothing .她的话起到了安慰的作用。
▷ exhilarating [ɪg'zɪləreɪtɪŋ; eg-]
making you very and
令人极度兴奋的；使人兴高采烈的an exhilarating in the 令人兴奋的山中漫步
▷ omission [ə(ʊ)'mɪʃ(ə)n]
when something has not been that should have been
疏忽，遗漏，疏漏Measures to are a (= very )omission from new to .新的儿童保护法规显然没有提及对雇用童工加以遏制的措施。There are some and omissions in the .这本书里有几处严重的的错误和疏漏。Many of the that the omission of Heacock from the England the .许多球迷认为球队不用希科克让英格兰队输掉了这场比赛。
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Using a statistical analysis of people’s reactions to different sorts of urban sound, the team drew up four broad categories: chaotic, calm, monotonous and vibrant. Mechanical sounds[1] tended to be chaotic. Human ones tended to be vibrant. The sounds of nature, though, could be either calm or monotonous. Birds chirping[2] were calming. Crickets chirping[3] were monotonous. Rain pattering down from the sky[4] was monotonous, but dripping from trees[5] it was calming. Drawing on social media to show which sounds people report hearing around them in particular places, the team then mapped the centres of the two cities accordingly.
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注释
[1]机器/机械的声音
[2]小鸟叽叽喳喳叫
[3]蟋蟀的叫声
[4]雨滴答滴答地从天上落下的声音
[5]雨水从树上滴落的声音
生词
▷monotonous [mə'nɒt(ə)nəs]
the same and not and
单调乏味的；毫无变化的a monotonous 单调的工作a monotonous 单调的声音The monotonous after a while.过了一会儿音乐变得单调起来。
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Not surprisingly, parks, such as Hyde Park[1], sound calm. More surprisingly beaches (at least, those in Barcelona) are monotonous. But, main roads aside (they are usually chaotic), a stranger to either city would have difficulty predicting from a map which streets would have good vibes and which would seem chaotic. That would bear further investigation, and perhaps even the attention of forward-thinking planning departments.
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注释
[1]Hyde Park海德公园位于英国伦敦中心的西敏寺地区，伦敦最大的皇家庭园。
[2]forward-thinking 前瞻的,有远见的
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以上言论不代表本人立场。
原文摘自《经济学人》，仅外语学习之用。
其中生词解释来源于Cambridge Dictionaries
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