Noise Awareness Research Articles

Insights from the "Acoustics Workshop in Educational Buildings" by Turkish Acoustical Society

This paper focuses on "Acoustics Workshop in Educational Buildings" organized by the Turkish Acoustical Society as part of International Noise Awareness Day 2023 Activities. The workshop brought together 34 participants, including designers, acoustic experts, teachers, and health and occupational safety professionals. Through interdisciplinary discussions, participants identified and prioritized acoustic problems, expectations and requirements for educational buildings, focusing on improving the quality of education. The workshop unfolded in two stages: firstly, participants were grouped by profession to identify primary acoustic challenges. Subsequently, multi-disciplinary teams collaboratively developed mitigation strategies to address these challenges. The results revealed profession-specific insights into main acoustic issues and proposed actionable solutions. This paper specifically provides insights into the use of qualitative content analysis to have a deeper understanding of different professions, people's experiences, behavior and priorities in relation to acoustics in school.

Noise in sustainable transformation of aviation

Rising awareness of aviation noise's health and annoyance impacts does not coincide with the industry's sustainable transition which is primarily driven by climate change. While electrification and sustainable fuels are seen as solutions, current strategies often encourage aviation sector growth including airport and traffic expansion. National initiatives aim to accelerate aviation's sustainable transformation, aligning with increased transportation accessibility and mobility goals. There is a push for directives for electric aviation, drones, and urban air mobility (UAM). Local health and annoyance, however, are overshadowed by the pretense of the global focus. Increased noise is anticipated with projected increases in air travel and added noise from electric and drone aircraft! This paper integrates noise and annoyance considerations into sustainable aviation transformation. A system analysis, using soft system methodologies, reveals comprehensive socio-technical perspectives from aviation, urban planning, citizens, and regulation. Findings indicate future noise challenges and unfavorable conditions for noise reduction innovations. The study advocates for society-wide strategies to manage aviation noise and annoyance, emphasizing recommendations like careful design, operational considerations, noise simulations, and democratic community involvement in implementation. These insights anticipate a surge in noise-related complaints and opposition. This paper is of interest also for future aviation developers.

Awareness, attitudes and perceptions of students towards leisure noise in Durban, South Africa.

Young adults are exposed to high noise levels in leisure venues, which increases their risk of hearing loss, and can affect their quality of life. The aim of this study was to describe the young adults' awareness, attitudes and perceptions towards leisure noise at a university in South Africa. A descriptive cross-sectional study design with quantitative methods of data was considered for this study. Students from first to fourth years in the Education Department of a local university in Durban, South Africa, who were aged 18 years old - 25 years old were invited to participate in an online survey. Of the 462 participants, most had a general awareness on noise and hearing loss but lacked knowledge on the negative effect of loud noise, with 95.2% using personal listening devices, followed by visiting restaurants and gyms, and 48.3% being unsure if noise can damage hearing permanently. They were unaware of methods to reduce their exposure to noise. A significant relationship between awareness of noise and attitudes (p= 0.029) indicated that the higher the level of awareness regarding leisure noise, the better their attitude and behaviour, thus the lower the risk of hearing loss. The results highlight the need for implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) noise regulations and providing education for this age group to prevent irreversible hearing loss through exposure to leisure noise.Contribution:A national study is recommended to increase research evidence.

Impact Analysis of Noise Pollution on Human-Health: A Case Study of Southern Region of Nigeria

Noise pollution, though not a new problem, has increased in recent times in reflection of human activities. Noise is an unpleasant sound capable of causing psychological and physiological problems for human health and society. This study aimed to assess the impact of noise pollution on the health of residents in the capital cities of Calabar, Port Harcourt, Uyo and Yenagoa. Data was obtained through a structured questionnaire designed to get firsthand information from respondents on variables such as socioeconomic characteristics, noise effect, neighbourhood noise awareness and sources. Across all the cities, multiple choices of noise were picked by the respondents, mostly vehicular traffic and generating plants. Mental stress (16.6%) was reported as the common effect of noise pollution, followed by distraction and lack of concentration to work (13.4%), while the least effect was a risk of accident (2.1%), followed by speech interference (1.8%). Thus, it is recommended that cities with high noise generation activities should adopt noise pollution regulation policies and also have potential mitigation measures in place, which should include noise-absorbing structures.

An awareness survey on childcare facilities and acoustic environment in Japan's residential areas.

A study conducted in Japan aimed to understand how childcare facilities should coexist with the local community. The researchers used a sound survey, demographic survey, and logistic regression analysis to study residents' noise awareness in various areas. They found that higher land prices led to lower approval of new childcare facilities. The study also revealed that those more sensitive to noise and less willing to participate in public events at childcare facilities were more significantly opposed to the establishment of new facilities.

An implementation and evaluation of sound activated noise display for the reduction of noise levels and enhancement of staff’s sleep and noise awareness

An implementation and evaluation of sound activated noise display for the reduction of noise levels and enhancement of staff’s sleep and noise awareness

Highways to Silence Revisited: A History of Discourse Coalitions around Traffic Noise

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the density of road traffic in the Global North decreased considerably. For those enjoying the resulting tranquillity, it prompted the hope that this experience would raise public noise awareness and alter mobility culture. Now that Global North economies are returning to pre-pandemic levels, however, not much appears to have changed. This article aims to contribute to understanding the persistence of the status quo by historically tracing discourse coalitions around traffic noise in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Discourse coalitions are connections between groups of actors that have opposing interests but share a specific set of storylines concerning a public problem. As we will show by focusing on the issue of traffic noise in the Netherlands, the long-term results of these discourse coalitions -in terms of discourse structuration, institutionalization and destabilization- tend to shift attention away from structural interventions in traffic flows.

Student's Self-Reported Experience of Soundscape: The Link between Noise, Psychological and Physical Well-Being.

Extensive research has shown that noise has detrimental effects on learning in classrooms, yet schools remain noisy environments. In addition, little is known about the students' insight into their subjective reaction to noise. Students' awareness of noise, as well as their perception of its effects on their affective and bodily states, remain unanswered. In the current study, the self-reported experience of noise and reaction towards noise, which was collected by way of a questionnaire, was assessed for 408 students in primary and secondary schools in Québec. Results suggest that about half of the students experience affective and bodily reactions to noise, and students who report having a negative affective reaction to noise are also more prone to report feeling this noise in their bodies. The results of this study offer a comprehensive picture of the students' subjective (affective and bodily) state in relation to noise in schools.

Evaluation of a Creative Drama Practice for Noise Awareness in Primary School

This study aims to investigate students' awareness of the level, causes and negative effects of noise in schools through the utilization of creative drama activities. The objective of this sample application is to contribute to the development of a more tranquil and peaceful school environment. A single case study design was employed for this research, with the study group comprising 16 fourth-grade students from a primary school. Student interviews served as the primary data collection tool, supplemented by observations and video recordings. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data, resulting in the identification of four main themes related to noise awareness: "lack of tranquility," "noise phenomenon," "conflict exacerbation," and "creative ideas". By incorporating the Visual Arts and Science curriculum, students demonstrated important life skills such as innovative thinking, effective communication, and analytical reasoning. Additionally, this interdisciplinary approach allowed for the attainment of learning objectives within the Science curriculum's sound unit, while also addressing the "Visual Communication and Formation" domain of the Art curriculum.

Awareness and Implications of Aircraft Noise on the Airport Staff of Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport Kano, Nigeria

Awareness and Implications of Aircraft Noise on the Airport Staff of Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport Kano, Nigeria

A Comprehensive Analysis of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss and Its Ayurvedic Insight

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a growing global health concern, primarily attributed to our increasingly noisy environments. This comprehensive analysis delves into the multifaceted aspects of NIHL while exploring potential insights from Ayurveda, an ancient Indian system of medicine. NIHL results from prolonged exposure to loud noise levels, causing damage to the delicate structures of the inner ear. It is a gradual and irreversible condition that affects millions of people worldwide, impacting their quality of life and overall health. Traditional approaches to NIHL management primarily focus on hearing aids and protective measures. However, this analysis seeks to integrate Ayurvedic principles and treatments to offer a holistic perspective on NIHL prevention and management. Ayurveda, with its holistic approach to health, considers the interplay of physical, mental, and environmental factors. In Ayurveda, hearing loss can be linked to imbalances in the doshas (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) and the accumulation of toxins in the body. By addressing these imbalances through dietary modifications, lifestyle changes, and herbal remedies, Ayurveda may offer valuable insights into preventing and managing NIHL. The analysis highlights the importance of noise awareness, emphasizing the need for public health campaigns and workplace regulations to reduce noise exposure. Additionally, it explores Ayurvedic herbs and therapies known for their potential in mitigating the effects of NIHL, such as Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) and Panchakarma detoxification procedures. Furthermore, the study discusses the role of yoga and meditation in stress management, as chronic stress can exacerbate NIHL. Ayurvedic practices like Pranayama (breathing exercises) and Shirodhara (oil therapy for the head) may promote relaxation and reduce stress, contributing to overall hearing health. In conclusion, this analysis offers a comprehensive overview of NIHL, including its causes, symptoms, and conventional management strategies. By incorporating Ayurvedic insights, we explore a holistic approach to NIHL prevention and management, acknowledging the potential benefits of Ayurveda in promoting hearing health. Further research and collaboration between traditional and modern healthcare systems are essential to harness the full potential of Ayurveda in addressing the global issue of NIHL.

Value Gain-based Power Line Subcarrier Aggregation Method under Colored Noise

With the large-scale power electronic equipment connected to the distribution network in the form of a new power system, the colored noise generated by power equipment will greatly reduce the efficiency of data transmission. The power line communication subcarrier grouping aggregation method features high transmission efficiency, excellent reliability, and high stability, which can improve the anti-interference and anti-noise performance of power line subcarriers. However, traditional subcarrier packet aggregation methods neglect the network topology changes and node service requirements, resulting in low adaptability of available subcarriers for power electronics scenarios. Therefore, we propose a value gain-based power line subcarrier aggregation method under colored noise. It can achieve adaptive colored noise awareness and dynamically optimize the subcarrier grouping aggregation. Simulation results demonstrate the excellent performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of availability and utilization efficiency.

Preventing Occupational Hearing Loss: 50 Years of Research and Recommendations from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

For more than 50 years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the United States (U.S.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been actively working to reduce the effects of noise and ototoxic chemicals on worker hearing. NIOSH has pioneered basic and applied research on occupational hearing risks and preventive measures. The Institute has issued recommendations and promoted effective interventions through mechanisms ranging from formal criteria documents to blogs and social media. NIOSH has conducted surveillance and published statistics to guide policy and target prevention efforts. Over the past five decades, substantial progress has been made in raising awareness of noise as a hazard, reducing the risk of occupational hearing loss, improving the use of hearing protection, and advancing measurement and control technologies. Nevertheless, noise remains a prevalent workplace hazard and occupational hearing loss is still one of the most common work-related conditions. NIOSH continues to work toward preventing the effects of noise and ototoxicants at work and has many resources to assist audiologists in their hearing loss prevention efforts.

ASSESSMENT OF NOISE LEVELS AND HEALTH-RELATED PROBLEMS IN SELECTED HOSPITALS IN ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA

Exposure to high noise levels in the hospital reportedly has negative effects on patients' health and reduces the productivity of the workers. This study assessed the noise levels in the various activity areas in some hospitals and their associated health effects in Abeokuta. The noise levels were measured using a digital sound level meter (Smart sensor DSLM). A descriptive cross-sectional survey was also conducted to examine the perception, effects, awareness and mitigation measures of noise among the hospital staff and patients. The observed mean noise levels in decibels (dB) throughout the activity areas in the hospitals ranged from 61.1-76.9dB (FMC), 62.0-74.3dB (SH), 63.4-71.4dB (SHH), 66.0-81.5dB (HC), and 59.0-66.7dB (KPH). The noise level was higher in the outpatient department and exceeded the WHO-recommended average noise levels in hospitals. Annoyance, distraction and stress were the most commonly reported noise effects among staff and patients in all hospitals. There was low awareness of noise effects and poor knowledge of mitigation measures for noise pollution among the respondents. Implementation of training to promote awareness of noise, enforcement and compliance with existing policies on noise prevention and control in healthcare facilities are highly recommended.

Can digital noise display devices reduce noise levels in hospital wards? A qualitative literature review

Hospital wards are noisy environments, and this has been recognised as a global healthcare challenge. Excessive noise can reduce staff performance and disrupt patients' sleep, delaying their recovery and leading to a prolonged stay. Research has suggested that digital noise display devices can alert ward staff and prompt them to reduce noise levels, but the literature on this topic varies. This systematic review summarises the evidence regarding the use of digital noise display devices as the primary intervention to reduce noise levels in hospital wards. The authors searched CINAHL, MEDLINE and PubMed databases, as well as manually harvesting through the references. A total of 1110 articles were identified, of which eight were eligible for inclusion. Thematic analysis was used to synthesise the findings. The evidence demonstrated that digital noise display interventions could reduce noise levels in wards by 2–3 decibels and raise staff awareness of noise. However, there was a lack of evidence that this intervention changed staff behaviour regarding noise levels. Further research is required to explore the experiences of patients and staff to understand if and how these devices changed behaviour towards noise.

Investigating the role of auditory and visual sensory inputs for inducing relaxation during virtual reality stimulation

Stress is a part of everyday life which can be counteracted by evoking the relaxation response via nature scenes presented using immersive virtual reality (VR). The aim of this study was to determine which sensory aspect of immersive VR intervention is responsible for the greatest relaxation response. We compared four conditions: auditory and visual combined (audiovisual), auditory only, visual only, and no artificial sensory input. Physiological changes in heart rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure were recorded, while participants reported their preferred condition and awareness of people, noise, and light in the real-world. Over the duration of the stimulation, participants had the lowest heart rate during the audiovisual and visual only conditions. They had the steadiest decrease in respiration rate and the lowest blood pressure during the audiovisual condition, compared to the other conditions, indicating the greatest relaxation. Moreover, ratings of awareness indicated that participants reported being less aware of their surroundings (i.e., people, noise, light, real environment) during the audiovisual condition versus the other conditions (p < 0.001), with a preference for audiovisual inputs. Overall, the use of audiovisual VR stimulation is more effective at inducing a relaxation response compared to no artificial sensory inputs, or the independent inputs.

A Semiotic Analysis of Children's Pictures: “A School Polluted by Noise

In this study, the pictures drawn by primary school students about noise were analyzed semiotically. The study was carried out with 20 primary school 3rd and 4th grade student volunteers. Research data are the pictures drawn by the children and the semi-structured interview records. From the analysis of the students' drawings, three main themes, namely "visual indicator", "sign", and "symbol" are identified in this paper. The reasons for the noise in the school are depicted quite well in the student pictures; noise is reflected as a phenomenon that is disturbing, destructive, threatening physiological-psychological health, and negatively affecting social life and learning in school. However, there were also paintings showing that they perceived sound and noise as the same concept. Students identified calmness in the classroom with the teacher. Findings suggested that activities should be included to improve the sound and noise awareness of the students at the school, initiate awareness in school of silence as a shared social value, and physically improve school acoustic quality.

Performance improvement in multi-label thoracic abnormality classification of chest X-rays with noisy labels.

This study aimed at developing a deep learning-based method for multi-label thoracic abnormality classification on frontal view chest X-ray (CXR). To improve the performance of classification, issues of class imbalance, noisy labels and ensemble of networks are addressed in the paper. The experiments were performed on a public dataset called Chest X-ray 14 (CXR14), which includes 112,120 frontal view CXRs from 30,805 patients. We came up with an ensemble learning framework to improve the classification and a noisy label detection method to detect the CXRs with noisy labels. The detected CXRs were reviewed by two board-certificated radiologists in a consensus fashion to evaluate detected noisy labels. The classification was assessed on CXR14 with area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Report from the radiologists indicated that detected noisy labels had high possibility to be true positives. A notable improvement from baseline in performance of classification was observed with the ensemble learning framework. After removing the CXRs with detected noisy labels, 8 out of 14 abnormalities improved significantly on CXR14. The suggested framework achieved AUC score of 0.827 on CXR14. The methods of this study boost the classification on CXR with awareness of the label noise. Expanded experimental results show that all of them were able to improve multi-label thoracic abnormality classification performance, respectively. A new state-of-the-art is achieved in this study.

Edukasi Sadar Bising Sebagai Upaya Promotif dan Preventif Terhadap Gangguan Dengar Melalui Media Podcast

Advances in technology and communication media that are increasingly rapidly giving meaning to the development of education where various information can be easily accessed, including health. Among the various latest trends that have emerged, podcasts appear as a very interesting technology for conducting health education and can be accepted by all circles, including the millennial generation. Various health education themes have been carried out through podcasts, one of which is noise awareness which reviews various information about the importance of maintaining hearing health and its impact on quality of life. The millennial generation is an age group that is close to technological developments, so that more and more young people are at risk of hearing loss due to frequent exposure to loud sounds from gadgets or from a noisy surrounding environment. The results of this podcast recording are then uploaded through the YouTube channel with the hope that the information that has been reviewed in it will be able to increase high awareness of individuals, especially the younger generation regarding their daily attitudes in maintaining hearing health, as a preventive and promotive effort. The result of this activity is the acceptance of education about noise awareness by the public which can be seen from the viewers listed on the youtube page. There are 675 viewers on this podcast upload.

Evaluation of the Leadership Qualities of Principals Regarding the Prevention of Noise Pollution in School: a Case Study

The purpose of this study was to reveal the leadership qualities of school principals in solving a noise problem at school. A single case study was selected as the research design. The study group consisted of primary and secondary school principals, one female and three males, working in the schools where the project was conducted. The main data collection tool of the study was interviews with the school principals. In addition, the study was supported with researcher observations and documents. The data were analyzed with inductive thematic analysis. The data were analyzed with a descriptive, explanatory and interpretive perspective in the context of noise prevention at schools. Four main themes emerged from the interviews with principals regarding noise at schools: "the noise problem," "administrative leadership," ”educational leadership," and "solution suggestions," The results show that participating in a project to prevent noise at schools has increased principals' awareness of noise and improved their leadership qualities in solving the noise problem. Principals are of the opinion that their schools are quieter than before and that the average academic success of their schools has increased. As a result, it has been determined that acoustic improvement, noise awareness training, rule making, discipline, value creation and culture formation are needed to create a quiet learning environment at schools.