Sound Spread Research Articles

Acoustics and the well-being of children and personnel in early childhood education and care

Studies implementing a multimethod perspective in evaluating the acoustics of early childhood education and care (ECEC) spaces both quantitatively and qualitatively are still scarce. In this study the acoustic environments (noise levels and reverberation times) of seven Finnish ECEC group’s premises were examined in association with personnel’s (N = 22) and children’s (N = 71) well-being. Personnel’s well-being and vocal health and children’s well-being were assessed with questionnaires. The findings were further elaborated by documentation of the ECEC spaces and semi-structured interviews with the ECEC personnel detailing their views on the acoustic environment of the daycare buildings and how and if the acoustics should be improved. The results showed that noise exceeding 70 dB affected personnel’s vocal health negatively, whereas no associations were found regarding acoustics and children’s or personnel’s well-being. Based on the interviews, sound spreading, poor insulation, and hard surfaces add to negative experiences of noisiness. ECEC groups need spaces that can be closed and acoustically separated from each other and from other groups. The possibility to close a space supports the perceived well-being of the users and provides a more varied and individualized use of the spaces.

An Average Speed of Sound Method for Underwater Positioning Based on Time of Arrival

This article uses the distance and sound spread time of each monitoring base station in the underwater positioning system, calculates the effective sound speed of the sound wave to the base station, and proposes a TOA underwater positioning method based on the average speed. The influence of small underwater sound changes the system positioning accuracy, reducing system positioning errors. Simulation experiments show that compared with the traditional fixed sound velocity method, this method has higher positioning accuracy and lower error. The positioning effect in a long baseline underwater positioning system is less dependent on the number of monitoring base stations. The cumulative probability of positioning error within 5 m can reach 70%, and the cumulative probability of error within 10 m can reach over 95%.

Sound radiation pattern of the advertisement call of the highly territorial poison frog Allobates femoralis

Sound radiation patterns have ecological implications in the effective communication between conspecifics, like optimization of the sound propagation, increase the likelihood to reach mates and to mitigate effects of sound scattering by environmental factors like vegetation. The territorial frog Allobates femoralis advertises its territory against conspecific males and attract females with advertisement calls. Here we report the nearly omnidirectional sound-radiation pattern of the advertisement call of A. femoralis. This sound spreading pattern allows the males to attract mates and repel rivals in all directions. Furthermore, A. femoralis males direct the advertisement call to conspecific neighbours after phonotactic orientation.

Analysis of spatial distribution of noiseon Adam Mickiewicz housing estate in Lublin

The paper deals with the problem of measuring and analysing noise in resi-dential areas with relation to their vicinity and landscape- and architecture composition. Al-most 70 points were selected to measure the noise three times per day and to create, using GIS tools, spatial image of the phenomenon. The resulting maps were analysed, pointing out sources of noise and factors reducing the sound spread. The further research ideas were suggested as well.

How Sound Spreads Is Reflected In Large Open Spaces

How Sound Spreads Is Reflected In Large Open Spaces

On a sound analysis of Korean Trot singer Nam in-su’s voice

The word “‘trot” means “walk quickly” and the fox-trot, which refers to the performance rhythm of social dance and it is now being used as a word relating to musical genre and performance. The late singer Nam In-su was Korean who performed in the early stage of Korean trots, and he had sung about 1,000 songs for about 20 years since his debut in 1938. His representative songs are “Sorrowful Serenade” (1938), “Vanish Away, the 38th Parallel (the Cease-fire Line of the Korean War)” (1949) and “Parting at Busan Station” (1953). His songs consoled Korean people against the sorrow of a lost and colonized home country and healed the pain generated from the division between South and North Korea and the loss due to the Korean war. This paper analyzes the acoustic components of his vocal voice that induce the softness and liveliness. His voice crosses over three octaves, and even when he sings quickly, his high-pitched sound spreads wide. The sound connection between measures is natural and smooth. In addition, deep vibrations appear at all frequency bandwidths, and pronunciations of lyrics are accurate, so his voice sounds very lively. This study will be helpful in understanding the value of popular singers’ vocal voice supported with acoustic analysis.

ESTIMATION OF WAVE HEIGHT BY USING COASTAL SOUND

In the research field of coastal engineering, while several researchers reported the physical mechanism or occurrence mechanism of the sound of breaking waves, the estimation of the wave height by using sound of waves has not been done. Thus, in this study, we have developed a method to estimate the wave height at a sandy beach using the observed pressure level of coastal sound spreading all around the coastal area and the wave period. This study revealed that a positive correlation can be seen between the significant wave height and the wave sound pressure level. Moreover, higher correlations were obtained with classifying the data by the significant wave period, which indicates that the significant wave height increases with increasing period when the sound pressure level is fixed. We then proposed an equation for estimating the significant wave height using the measured wave sound pressure level and significant wave period, which equation was found to successfully reproduce the two sets of measured ones (R = 0.83 and 0.82).

A mesoscale eddy detection method of specific intensity and scale from SSH image in the South China Sea and the Northwest Pacific

Mesoscale eddies exist almost everywhere in the ocean and play important roles in the ocean circulation of the world. These eddies may cause sound spread singular regions and bring great influences to the upwater ship and underwater aircraft. Due to the lack of hydrographic survey datasets, study of mesoscale eddies has been greatly restricted. Fortunately, satellite altimeter provided an effective way to study mesoscale eddies. An automatic detection algorithm is introduced to detect mesoscale eddies of specific intensity and spatial/temporal scale based on satellite sea surface height (SSH) data and the algorithm is applied in a strong eddy activity region: the South China Sea and the Northwest Pacific. The algorithm includes four steps. The first step is preprocessing of the SSH image, which includes elimination of error SSH data and interpolation. The second step is to detect suspected mesoscale eddies from preprocessed SSH images by dynamic threshold adjustment and morphological method, and the suspected mesoscale eddy detection includes two procedures: suspected mesoscale eddy core region detection and suspected mesoscale eddy brim extraction. The third step is to pick out mesoscale eddies satisfied with specified criteria from suspected mesoscale eddies. The criteria include three items, that is, intensity criterion, spatial scale, criterion and temporal scale criterion. The last step is algorithm performance analysis and verification. The algorithm has the capability of adaptive parameter adjustment, and can extract mesoscale eddies of interested intensity and spatial/temporal scale. The paper can provide a basis for analyzing space-time characteristics of mesoscale eddy in the South China Sea and the Northwest Pacific.

High Source Levels and Small Active Space of High-Pitched Song in Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus)

The low-frequency, powerful vocalizations of blue and fin whales may potentially be detected by conspecifics across entire ocean basins. In contrast, humpback and bowhead whales produce equally powerful, but more complex broadband vocalizations composed of higher frequencies that suffer from higher attenuation. Here we evaluate the active space of high frequency song notes of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Western Greenland using measurements of song source levels and ambient noise. Four independent, GPS-synchronized hydrophones were deployed through holes in the ice to localize vocalizing bowhead whales, estimate source levels and measure ambient noise. The song had a mean apparent source level of 185±2 dB rms re 1 µPa @ 1 m and a high mean centroid frequency of 444±48 Hz. Using measured ambient noise levels in the area and Arctic sound spreading models, the estimated active space of these song notes is between 40 and 130 km, an order of magnitude smaller than the estimated active space of low frequency blue and fin whale songs produced at similar source levels and for similar noise conditions. We propose that bowhead whales spatially compensate for their smaller communication range through mating aggregations that co-evolved with broadband song to form a complex and dynamic acoustically mediated sexual display.

Toddlers’ Processing of Phonological Alternations: Early Compensation for Assimilation in English and French

Using a picture pointing task, this study examines toddlers' processing of phonological alternations that trigger sound changes in connected speech. Three experiments investigate whether 2;5- to 3-year-old children take into account assimilations--processes by which phonological features of one sound spread to adjacent sounds--for the purpose of word recognition (e.g., in English, ten pounds can be produced as te[mp]ounds). English toddlers (n = 18) show sensitivity to native place assimilations during lexical access in Experiment 1. Likewise, French toddlers (n = 27) compensate for French voicing assimilations in Experiment 2. However, French toddlers (n = 27) do not take into account a hypothetical non-native place assimilation rule in Experiment 3, suggesting that compensation for assimilation is already language specific.

Financial Inclusion: A Saga of Indian Financial System

Financial inclusion means improving access to financial services for poor people through the safe and sound spread of new approaches based on principles. The present article attempts to explore the diffusion of financial inclusion in the Indian financial system. Financial access with market size and depth in India is compared with select Asian peer group and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The article also explores competition scenarios among scheduled commercial banks operating in India. The results of entropy, exponential index, Herfindahl index, Gini coefficient and concentration coefficient of 76 scheduled commercial banks operating in India indicate a fair degree of competition and concentration among themselves. Improved regulations, innovation, growth and value creation in the sector make it a highly competitive sector. But this sector is dominated by public sector banks, followed by private sector banks. This study identifies lessons learnt from nine principles of innovative financial inclusion (namely, leadership, diversity, knowledge, empowerment, protection, proportionality, innovation, cooperation and framework) that were applied in providing financial services to vulnerable groups in India. The results show that commercial banks, cooperative banks, regional rural banks and microfinance programmes have been playing a vital role in removing financial exclusion in India. Financial inclusion in the Indian financial system is through the larger number of banks, competition and good governance, with diversified ownership.

Calibration of hybrid species distribution models: the value of general‐purpose vs. targeted monitoring data

AbstractAim Temporally replicated observations are essential for the calibration and validation of species distribution models (SDMs) aiming at making temporal extrapolations. We study here the usefulness of a general‐purpose monitoring programme for the calibration of hybrid SDMs. As a benchmark case, we take the calibration with data from a monitoring programme that specifically surveys those areas where environmental changes expected to be relevant occur.Location Catalonia, north‐east of Spain.Methods We modelled the distribution changes of twelve open‐habitat bird species in landscapes whose dynamics are driven by fire and forest regeneration. We developed hybrid SDMs combining correlative habitat suitability with mechanistic occupancy models. We used observations from two monitoring programmes to provide maximum‐likelihood estimates for spread parameters: a common breeding bird survey (CBS) and a programme specifically designed to monitor bird communities within areas affected by wildfires (DINDIS).Results Both calibration with CBS and DINDIS data yielded sound spread parameter estimates and range dynamics that suggested dispersal limitations. However, compared to calibration with DINDIS data, calibration with CBS data leads to biased estimates of spread distance for seven species and to a higher degree of uncertainty in predicted range dynamics for six species.Main conclusions We have shown that available monitoring data can be used in the calibration of the mechanistic component of hybrid SDMs. However, if the dynamics of the target species occur within areas not well covered, general‐purpose monitoring data can lead to biased and inaccurate parameter estimates. To determine the potential usefulness of a given monitoring data set for the calibration of the mechanistic component of a hybrid SDM, we recommend quantifying the number of surveyed sites that are predicted to undergo habitat suitability changes.

Modelling a reef as an extended sound source increases the predicted range at which reef noise may be heard by fish larvae

Underwater sound emanating from reefs has been shown to be attractive to pre-set- tlement larval stages of fish and crustaceans, but its ecological importance depends on the range at which this cue can be detected by these larvae. Here we show, through field measurement and modelling, that the spatially extended sound source of a reef creates a surrounding zone, which extends for a distance offshore equal to the length of the reef, within which there is almost no loss in the sound level. Beyond this zone, the sound level decreases with cylindrical spreading plus any seafloor attenuation. This 'reef effect' means that the sound from a reef would be detectable at a much greater distance from the reef than would be estimated from a spot measurement near the reef or by using theoretical models of sound spreading from a point source. The greater reach for sound emanating from a reef means that reef noise could play a greater role in directing larval reef fishes and crabs to suitable settlement habitats than previously estimated.

A Sound Sources Locating Method of Constrained Least Squares Based on Time Delay Estimation

The sound sources positioning method based on time delay estimation is through the iteration of a group of nonlinear equation to solve the target position. Most of the existing methods is to solve under the hypothesis that the sound spread velocity in air is known. This paper puts forward several effective methods of source orientation and propagation velocity estimation. These methods are only using the time delay which comes from the received signal between sensors separated in space to deduce the solving method of sound source location and sound’s speed estimation based on least squares, total least squares, limited data not sure and constraint least squares method, and then compare the characteristics of these methods through the computer simulation.

The Smell of Ashes

The Smell of Ashes Jean Ross Justice (bio) Twice today my life was spared. The first close call was at the river bridge, when I was making a left turn. I’d misjudged the speed of the oncoming car and was barely out of the way in time; he blasted me with the horn. The sound spread out on the air, flat and metallic. I had a brief palpitation, a feeling like a small bicyclist deep in my chest, pedaling too fast, whirling away. If there’d been a crash, I’d have said to the police: my fault, all my fault! I’m an old woman driving a long burgundy car, one of those powerful gas-guzzlers, the last car my husband Norris picked out. That deep rich hum he liked is worn out; the engine has come to have an unhealthy excitable sound. But this morning I was spared again. They’re gone, the others, Gwen and Kip and Norris; they’re all dead. No, it was not some mass tragedy: they got old, they died. I got old but I’m still here. Kip died quite suddenly, at his wife Gwen’s care center; he’d gone there to have lunch with her. I didn’t see him often in his old age, but I remember his relatives with their reddish cheeks, clumping along on stiff legs, their voices loud from deafness; and so I can picture him pushing her wheelchair into the dining room, making his way slowly, or perhaps an aide is pushing her. The aide leaves; they’re, in a sense, alone together in the big room of small tables with white tablecloths. They talk a little, as quietly as deafness allows. They eat; everyone eats; there’s a clatter of dishes. He rises at the end, after the cottage pudding, and falls—blam. An aide runs over; another is running to the hall, calling. He’s gone. Gwen sits in the wheelchair, watching. That’s how it ended; and I hold onto that picture of them, an old couple lunching together and at least imitating, there in their last years, a peaceful life together. After her diagnosis I went there to help. People said, “How wonderful of you to go help out,” and I’d say, “Wouldn’t you do the same for somebody that close to you?” We were double first cousins: in our parents’ generation two sisters had married [End Page 394] brothers. We’d grown up down the road from each other, always together. First let me explain how it was there in the country. Kip’s family lived down on the river. In my childhood “down on the river” sounded tony and romantic. Perhaps my father, saying the words, sounded envious. That was where the good land was, and it was true that the families who lived down there were old families and reasonably prosperous, even during the shank of the Depression. We saw their cars pass at a time when ours sat in the garage for lack of money to buy a tag. And Gwen and I lived in books and imagination: we read Agatha Christie and dreamed of the Calais coach and the Orient Express; of New York, where the women in magazine stories lived, owed their furriers, remembered boarding school at St. Cloud, and received telegrams and flowers. We weren’t like my high-school friend Mary Alice, who’d married a hardworking, loud-mouthed dairy farmer, but even with the work and early rising she finished a book or two a week; she read them fast and didn’t dream over them. She’d grasped something important: that her life had nothing to do with anything in books, a distinction Gwen and I had been careless of. Kip’s home down on the river, genuinely old, with genuine old columns two stories high, seemed to us a romantic place where something in a book might happen. And he was good-looking and sure of himself. She married him and lived down on the river, and found it was as dull as anywhere else. Then she got sick, and I lived there a while too. “Nothing...

Reconstruction of acoustic field horizontal layer in diffusive ambience

This study introduces a method how to minimize the number of acoustic measurements in the diffusive ambience in order to reconstruct the horizontal layer of primary acoustic field. This reconstruction means determination of the level of the sound pressure at any point of surface, e.g. worker's occupational place, where there are a lot of sound sources. A mathematical modeling, based on regularity of sound spread, is used in the study. The elements of active experiment are applied in the research, the adequacy of mathematical model is evaluated by Fisher criterion, and the mathematical model of horizontal layer of the acoustic field is based on the polynomial of the regressive equation. The results are compared to the measurements received in the real experiment. This study also pays great attention to local and the EU legal regulations about the noise standards at the worker's occupational place and the measures to be taken to lower the noise level. The device of sound measurement INVESTIGATOR type 2260 and MAPLE 11 mathematics software tool have been used in the research.

Cinema as an attraction: representations of bridgend's cinema exhibition history in the Glamorgan Gazette, Wales, 1900–1939

Tom Gunning has claimed the term ‘cinema of attractions’ for the study of early, ‘primitive’ films.1 Whilst this terminology refers to a specific time period and type of film, it also calls attenti...

The impact of noise on the psychological development of man

Theoretical and empiric research results prove that noise harms not only physical but also mental health of people. Long exposition to strong noise provokes inner tension and anxiety, which often leads to damage of organ of hearing. The consequences of noise are obvious in neuro-vegetative disorder. People exposed to the noise, which is beyond possibilities of their organ of hearing, show weariness, insomnia and anxious dreams, poor concentration and spiritual absence. Psychologists indicate on a zone of normal hearing, which is expressed in decibels. The zone of hearing is different for speech and music. Pain comes beyond 100 decibels and exposure to stronger noise leads to deafness. The photos presented show: the structure of organ of hearing, the process of sound spreading from a source until its meaning is identified in the brain cortex and decibel scales with examples of characteristic sound sources. Research show that there are individual differences in adapting to noise. Some people adapt quickly, other slowly, but some people cannot adapt to noise at all. However, it does not mean that noise is not harmful even to those ones who claim that noise does not disturb them, especially when it is strong, long and intermittent. The paper determines a need for protection against noise, because, in our time, it is one of realistic dangers to human’s physical and mental health. The text points out a need for skilled application of technical and psycho-physiological measures.

Loss of natural soundscapes within the Americas

Species specific calls within an ecosystem evolve to adjust to the physical acoustic constraints of that ecosystem as well as the constraints imposed by the spectal content of the calls of other species occupying that ecosystem. The result is a rich texture of sound spread over both the audible (human) and inaudible spectrum with changing patterns at different times of the day. Based on 30 years of experience in recording natural soundscapes, the author documents the loss of natural soundscapes within the U.S. and other countries of the Americas. The results are demonstrated with field recordings.

Scale effects as constraints in insect sound communication

Calling insects have problems of optimizing range and maintaining the specificity of the call. Higher frequencies are more easily refracted and reflected by objects in the environment. Smaller insects have less muscle power and also, because of the small sound source size, higher frequencies are radiated more efficiently than lower frequencies. In open air or water, the sound spreads spherically and decays by the inverse square law. If the sound can be confined to a sheet it decays as the inverse of range while within a rod it decays due to viscous losses; such calls are usually rather simple pulses and rely on initial time of arrival because of multiple pathlengths in the environment. With airborne sounds, those in the range from 1 to 10 kHz tend to have sustained pure-tone components and a specific pattern of pulses which propagates well; but with higher frequencies pulses tend to become briefer and, once again, to rely on time of arrival of the onset.