bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A sound encounter or deaf ignorance: Coherence of new buildings to old mosques
Authors: Ciao Quinsan
Published: October 2013

This is to raise the issue of a common phenomenon occuring within the booming development of many Islamic cities where a building site is nested within the common cluster of old mosques. The location and exisitance of mosques are fixed as God-given constraints and so is the voice of calling for prayers. The sound of worshiping infiltrated in all urban interior/exterior spaces. A brief study shows the split views in an Arab city where freedom of expression is progressing. Should the new buildings embrace the spiritual deeds and be the powerful bearer of the Holy Tune? Should we try to prevent the noise from interfering with the modern day function? Are there any design guidelines? A quick overview shows that the majority of new buildings recently built in Kuwait City neglected the subject, particularly the large projects commissioned to western design firms whose consultants may have less awareness of the issues related to the small-scale religious entities. This creates not only challenges to their proposal of an ideal form, but also the need for a unique answer to the acoustics regarding the sound of worship. A project involving students’ works was carried out to explore the possibilities of tackling the problem.
Cues used by female barking treefrogs (Hyla gratiosa) to assess distances to potential mates
Authors: Murphy Christopher G.
Published: October 2013

In chorusing insects and amphibians, females have the potential to choose from among a number of males located at various distances from the choosing female. In barking treefrogs, the distance to potential mates influences female choice, with females choosing a more attractive call over an unattractive call until the distance to the source of the more attractive call, relative to the source of the unattractive call, becomes too great. Two- and eight-speaker playback experiments were used to determine which cues females use to assess the distances to potential mates. These playback experiments ruled out three possible cues: degradation of signal quality, amplitude at the location of the female, and the sound gradient (how rapidly call amplitude increases as a sound source is approached). Additional playbacks showed that females consistently preferred signals with the highest source amplitude, even when the amplitude of that signal at the location of the female was lower than that of another signal during a substantial proportion of the approach by the female. These results indicate the source amplitude is an important cue in mate choice and suggest that females use a complex mechanism (e.g., triangulation) to judge distance to potential mates.
Observation and modeling of a spatiotemporal pattern in fish chorusing
Authors: D’Spain Gerald L. , Batchelor Heidi H. , Berchok Catherine L.
Published: October 2013

A numerical model was developed to predict the unusual spatio-temporal characteristics of sciaenid chorusing recorded offshore of the Southern California coast. The model, based on the physics of excitable media, is composed of a random distribution of units (fish) on a 2D grid that inhabits one of three states: resting, excitable, and active. Temporal evolution of a unit’s state is determined by transition laws. The temporal character of chorusing (increases in ocean sound levels by factors of 2 to 5 for 10–20 s followed by 15–20 s periods of lower levels) can be predicted using a Poisson waiting time distribution, once the proper parameters are selected. For some parameters, the predicted chorusing levels evolve into a continuous din rather than displaying a cycling nature. In one experiment, the spatial evolution of chorusing also has a periodic nature; each chorus begins off the Mexican coast and the chorusing region propagates 25 km upcoast until the fish just south of San Diego harbor reach a chorus peak 16–20 s later. Predicting this observation for arbitrary initial conditions requires coupling between units, achieved by incorporating the received sound level into the probability of transitioning from excitable to active states. [Work supported by ONR.]
Microbubble cavitation, boiling, and nonlinear acoustic propagation in high-intensity focused ultrasound thermal therapy
Authors: Kaczkowski P. J. , Bailey M. R. , Crum L. A. , Khokhlova V. A. , Anand A.
Published: October 2013

The investigation of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) as a tool for noninvasive thermally ablative therapy has required deeper understanding of the relative roles of nonlinear mechanisms involved in heat deposition. Attempts at quantifying the dose response to particular exposure conditions in vitro are complicated by the interplay of several mechanisms. These include microbubble cavitation, nonlinear acoustic propagation and attenuation, dependence of tissue parameters on temperature and temperature history, and formation and evolution of vapor bubbles due to boiling. One immediately evident consequence of such effects is distortion of coagulative lesion shape and size, colloquially evolving from cigars to tadpoles. Developing a quantitative understanding of the relative roles of relevant nonlinear mechanisms is not straightforward, yet is desirable for design of algorithms for therapy planning and real-time monitoring using ultrasound. A historical perspective of research toward this end will be presented along with a recommendation for suitable terminology for the various physical acoustic regimes encountered in HIFU therapy. [Work supported by Army MRMC, NIH DK43881, NSBRI SMS00402, and RFBR.]
An amplitude-modulated harmonic motion imaging method for mapping tissue ablation
Authors: Maleke Caroline , Pernot Mathieu , Konofagou Elisa
Published: October 2013

Previously, a single-element focused transducer method inducing amplitude-modulated (AM) radiation force deep within the tissue was introduced. This technique offers real-time capability for monitoring the change in the tissue mechanical properties during focused ultrasound (FUS) therapy. In this paper, we extend the application of this technique for 2D mapping of the FUS lesion. The harmonic radiation force was generated by a 4.68-MHz focused transducer modulated at 50–100 Hz. Radio frequency (rf) data were acquired at 7.5 MHz with a PRF of 6.5 kHz, and displacements were estimated using a 1D cross-correlation algorithm on successive rf signals. A bandpass analog filter with fc1=5 MHz and fc2=8 MHz was employed to remove the spectrum of the focused beam. The real-time monitoring method was adjusted to induce 2-s sonication time using a continuous wave, followed by 100-ms AM signal to image tissue displacements. The experiments were performed on ex vivo porcine liver. The tissue was raster-scanned before and after lesion formation. Results indicated that displacement amplitudes decreased after lesion formation due to the associated elasticity change, and thus 1-cm-diameter lesions were accurately mapped. Future investigations of this technique will include temperature and coagulation mapping in vivo.
Focused ultrasound-induced transgene activation in skeletal muscles
Authors: Lu Xiaochun , Sankin Georgii , Madden John , Zhong Pei
Published: October 2013

Focused ultrasound (FUS)-induced gene activation in the skeletal muscles of a rat model was investigated. Plasmids that encode the luciferase gene under the control of hsp70B promoter were transfected into the skeletal muscles of the hind limbs of a rat model by electroporation. One day following the gene transfection, the left hind limb was treated with 3.3-MHz FUS by raster scan of a 9×9-mm3 area while the right hind limb was used as control. The output of the FUS transducer was adjusted to produce a rapid in vivo temperature rise (<4 s) to three different temperature plateaus in the range of 40–50°C, 50–60°C, and 60–70°C for a treatment duration up to 30 s. One day following FUS treatment, gene expression in vivo was analyzed and tissue injury assessed by H&E staining. It was found that in vivo gene activation and tissue damage were highly correlated with thermal dosage. The highest gene activation was produced by the FUS at 50–60°C with an exposure time of 20 s, which was found to be statistically equivalent to the gene activation produced by water-bath hyperthermia (42°C for 35 min). At this thermal dose, FUS-induced tissue injury was sublethal and could recover in a week.
Introduction to deconvolution
Authors: Jansson Peter A.
Published: October 2013

Deconvolution tasks will always lie at the frontier of knowledge in many fields, almost by definition, because measurement resolution often defines the state of our knowledge. Rising in the latter 20th century from near-disreputability, first to usefulness, then necessity in some disciplines, the varied techniques of deconvolution have assumed an increasingly important role in the scientist’s tool kit. This talk will trace deconvolution’s development with examples, including many firsts, drawn from spectroscopy, radio astronomy, cell biology, color science, and diverse other fields. Following a tutorial introduction, detail will be provided on modern super-resolving methods, and lesser-known topics such as selected-ordinate image (SORI) processing.
High-resolution acoustic and optical imaging underwater
Authors: Singh Hanumant
Published: October 2013

High-resolution sensing from underwater platforms continues to be limited by the mismatch between sensor resolution and available navigation information. In this talk we explore a similar set of solutions that works across the diverse applications and sensing modalities associated with multibeam sonar and optical camera systems. By utilizing results from the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), computer vision and photogrammetric communities we examine the role of sensor consistency for overlapping sensor swaths to yield a far more accurate representation of the environment. We present our work in the context of real data acquired from a variety of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) in a variety of locations including shallow-water coral reef surveys with the Seabed AUV, mapping the RMS Titanic at 4100 m from the Hercules ROV and multibeam mapping of the TAG hydrothermal mound on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 2800 m.
Development of equivalent circuit analogies that can predict the loading effects of a multilayered structure on an electro-acoustic transducer
Authors: Fisher Karl
Published: October 2013

A technique is being developed based on a direct correlation between the electrical impedance of a standard electro-acoustic transducer and the mechanical loading it experiences when placed in contact with a layered elastic structure. Quantitative structural information can be determined empirically provided that there is an accurate calibration standard to compare the measured electrical impedance to. Normally this would be accomplished using a mechanical structure with known dimensions and construction. However, in some instances this may not be practical. The goal is to investigate simple and accurate calibration standards based on electrical circuit analogies to quantify resonant measurements on multilayered elastic structures. [This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48.]
The method of adjoint field in inverse scattering of plane waves
Authors: Ghosh Roy D. N. , Norton S. J. , Schable M.
Published: October 2013

The notion of the adjoint operator/field is introduced, and its general importance in physical sciences briefly discussed. The applications of the adjoint in the solutions of inverse scattering problems for plane-wave excitation are overviewed for both obstacles and inhomogeneities. The method is then illustrated by applying it to a specific problem, namely the volume reconstruction of an acoustic object by inverse scattering. Calculations of noise propagation from the data to the reconstructed image in inverse scattering using the adjoint field algorithm are presented. These calculations are then specialized to the case of Born approximation. Finally, the similarities and differences between inverse scattering and X-ray tomographic covariance are pointed out.
Adjoint-based sensitivity analysis of fluid-structure interaction vibrations
Authors: Liew Haw-Ling , Pinsky Peter M.
Published: October 2013

Adjoint-based sensitivity analysis for the cavity fluid-structure interaction vibrations problem, with the inclusion of prestress and internal pressurization, is considered. The formulation employs a continuum approach in which the adjoint model is defined by employing a new duality relation between the sensitivities and the adjoint variables. For complex problems, such as fluid-structure interaction, the new duality relation provides an unambiguous approach for the construction of the adjoint variational problem in contrast to the standard approach. It also provides useful insight into the interpretation of the adjoint method. The resulting adjoint formulation for sensitivities is based on evaluation of inner products of the adjoint and state variables and is efficient because it requires the calculation of the adjoint field only once, regardless of the number of decision variables. In order to assess the accuracy of the adjoint approach for sensitivities in fluid-structure interaction problems, a model problem is considered and exact and analytical adjoint sensitivities are compared. The method is then applied to a finite element human eye model to compute the sensitivities with respect to elasticity constants and intraocular pressure for application to inverse estimation of those properties. The results are presented using a particularly effective multidimensional visualization technique.
Comparison of measurement indices of noise intrusions in multi-family housing
Authors: Siebein Gary , Paek Hyun , Jones Chris
Published: October 2013

Methods for measuring sound levels associated with transportation, impact, and airborne sound intrusions in multi-family housing are well established in the field. This paper compares field testing of assemblies where complaints and retrofits have been involved where traditional assessments of intruding noises showed compliance with design criteria, but where residents and/or building owners perceived problems. Case study 1 involves noise from airplanes approaching a runway at a large international airport as heard in an all-glass high-rise condominium evaluated by LDNs and SELs of actual flyovers in computer models and in a full size mock-up of a typical unit built on site. Case study 2 involves noise from outdoor amplified entertainment propagating into neighborhoods as evaluated by various noise ordinance criteria. Case study 3 involves footstep noise through flooring systems comparing IIC ratings with actual sound pressure levels of people walking on floors above. Case study 4 compares noise and vibration levels for various pieces of mechanical equipment before and after retrofit with NC, RC, and other room criteria. Auralizations of the case studies will be shown along with measurement data to illustrate the diagnostics made in each case.
Legal and acoustical issues in multifamily housing
Authors: Lapin Jeff
Published: October 2013

There are a plethora of legal issues that arise with respect to the suitability of design criteria and acoustical performance of multifamily housing properties. When complaints arise from residents, field testing can be done to determine if the units as constructed meet the design criteria or condominium documents. Questions can arise about the reasonableness of the criteria, the scientific validity of the testing process, the evidentiary value of test results, the type and extent of reasonable remedies, and allocation of responsibility among interested parties in resolving the dispute. This paper will identify the legal issues involved in disputes between private parties regarding acoustical issues such as soundproofing, as well as the use of acoustical criteria and testing as forming the legal basis for complaints and as a vehicle for resolving disputes involving the acoustical performance of buildings once they are occupied. The rights and duties existing under the common law of nuisance which allows people to enjoy their property free from unresonable interference will be examined along with the impact prescriptive requirements in building codes or condominium documents has on disputes involving acoustical performance in multifamily housing. The specific laws of one state will be used in the case studies as examples of situations that can arise where acoustical consultants deal with legal issues in multifamily housing.
Field airborne sound isolation in multifamily construction evaluation of metrics within ASTM E336
Authors: LoVerde John J. , Dong David W.
Published: October 2013

ASTM E336 defines several metrics describing airborne sound isolation for wall and floor/ceiling assemblies within multifamily dwellings. The standard mirrors the procedures for laboratory testing of sound transmission class (STC) in defining field STC (FSTC), which does not include flanking paths and is therefore virtually impossible to measure in the field. The current standard includes provisions for the measurements of apparent STC (ASTC) which include flanking paths, and field measurements within multifamily dwellings typically report ASTC even though applicable building codes require the reporting of FSTC. The standard also provides two noise reduction metrics, noise isolation class (NIC) and normalized NIC (NNIC). Analysis of the relationships of ASTC, NNIC, and NIC will be presented along with a survey of field test results and correlation with subjective reactions of occupants within multifamily dwellings. The analysis shows that the additional work required to determine the ASTC or NNIC is not warranted because it provides no additional useful data, and that the proper metric for evaluation of acoustical performance in the field for multifamily dwellings is NIC.
Condominium noise issues: Problem solving with flooring systems and solving flooring system problems
Authors: Still Jospeh
Published: October 2013

With increasing frequency, condominiums are being designed without suspended ceilings. At the same time, the popularity of hard floor coverings such as tile continues to grow. These factors combine to create significant problems with impact noise in these buildings. Architects and acoustical engineers have looked to the flooring industry for noise-reduction solutions, and the response has been the production of a wide variety of sound-reducing systems. However, not all of these impact insulation sound reduction systems are acceptable for hard-surface flooring. The total performance of the floor/ceiling system including acoustical as well as durability tests should always be carefully scrutinized, evaluated, and verified by acoustical consultants. Furthermore, strict adherence to proper installation techniques by contractors is essential to achieving the sound reduction performance that should be expected of a given product. Among the major topic areas addressed in this paper are the current flooring industry standards for underlayment systems; realistic expectations for sound reduction and durability from various types of flooring and underlayment systems; and recommended changes in architectural specifications for flooring. This paper also includes practical guidelines for evaluating and verifying the claims made for flooring systems regarding impact sound reduction and several problem-solving examples from real-world applications.
Estimation of poroelastic parameters from measured reflectivity
Authors: Neilsen Tracianne , Isakson Marcia
Published: October 2013

The reflectivity of sound at a water-sediment interface contains information about the properties of the sediment. Estimates of these properties can be obtained by optimizing the match between the magnitude of the measured reflectivity, as a function of grazing angle and frequency, and values computed using a poroelastic sediment model. A traditional simulated annealing approach yields such parameter estimates but little information about the uncertainty associated with those estimates. An alternate approach computes the posterior probability distributions (PPDs) for the parameters using a fast Gibbs’ sampler approach. The PPDs not only indicate the most probable values for each parameter, but the widths of the distributions also provide an understanding of the uncertainty and the dependence of the data-model mismatch on each parameter. Both of these methods are applied to reflectivity measured in a laboratory tank over a frequency band of 77–147 kHz and grazing angles of 7–49 deg. [Work suppported by ONR, Ocean Acoustics.]
Time-reversal operator target focusing using optimal beam sets
Authors: Edelmann G. F. , Lingevitch J. F. , Fromm D. M. , Gaumond C. F. , Menis R.
Published: October 2013

Time-reversal operator (TRO) methods can be used to focus sound on an ocean target using a time-reversal mirror. In order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, the TRO can be measured by transmitting simultaneously the entire array instead of transmitting source by source. The so-called beam-space. TRO is measured by transmitting a set of orthogonal beams. Acoustic propagation will be simulated in a realistic range and time-dependent ocean environment measured during the TREX04 experiment [Gaumond, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (in press)]. This paper will compare four different sets of beams: Hadamard, phased planar, spatially phased, and modal. The first two methods require no a priori environmental knowledge, the third requires only waveguide depth, and the final requires a sound-speed profile and geoacoustics measured at the TRM. Results will be discussed in terms of signal gain, complexity to implement, and coherence in an inhomogeneous ocean environment varying in both time and space. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]
Vapor bubbles and sound
Authors: Prosperetti Andrea
Published: October 2013

The paper focuses on the differences between the behavior of gas and vapor bubbles in a sound field. The stiffness of a gas bubble derives from the compression of the gas, while that of a vapor bubble is due to the release of latent heat and the consequent heating of the bubble contents. As a consequence, while the resonance frequency of a gas bubble is approximately inversely proportional to its radius, that of a vapor bubble varies like the inverse radius to the power 2/3. At sufficiently low frequencies, vapor bubbles have no stiffness at all. An oscillating vapor bubble may pick up by diffusion some gas dissolved in the liquid, which has a strong effect on the dynamics. These and other effects will be illustrated in the presentation. [Work supported by NASA Grant NNC05GA47G.]
The multiple facets of bubble-enhanced high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) lesion formation
Authors: Roy Ronald A. , Farny Caleb H. , Wu Tianming , Holt R. Glynn
Published: October 2013

Exposure to high-intensity focused ultrasound can in some cases result in bubble formation. These bubbles can accelerate heating and contribute to the formation of irregularly shaped lesions. The relevant mechanical and thermal effects depend critically on several factors, such as temporal peak and temporal average acoustic intensity, pulse duration and duty cycle, bubble equilibrium sizes, tissue temperature, and tissue acoustic, rheological, and thermal properties. We will present a summary description of what physical effects matter, when, and why. Implications for HIFU treatment monitoring through the active and passive bubble detection are discussed. [Work supported by the Dept. of the Army (award No. DAMD17-02-2-0014) and the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (NSF ERC Award No. EEC-9986821).]
A short history of physical acoustics at Brown
Authors: Beyer Robert T.
Published: October 2013

Modern acoustics at Brown began with Bruce Lindsay. Lindsay had been a student of atomic theory, but switched to acoustics during and after WWII. He found strong support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and brought to the department Arthur Williams, Peter Westervelt, Jordan Markham, Bob Morse, Rohn Truell, Wes Nyborg, and many others. Honors in the Society among this group included three presidencies, two gold medals, and several silver awards, as well as Lindsay’s role of 20 years as Editor-in-Chief. The author of this paper recently found himself described in a German publication as ‘‘Schatzmeister’’ (look it up) of the Acoustical Society of America. Rohn Truell moved to Applied Mathematics at Brown and developed a second acoustics group there, which included Charles Elbaum and Humphrey Maris. From acoustic filters to nanosecond technology, the subject moved forward. But, we were all following Bruce Lindsay.
Amplitude modulation detection by infants and adults
Authors: Werner Lynne
Published: October 2013

Infants’ and adults’ intensity processing was examined by estimating the modulation depth required to detect amplitude modulation in a broadband noise. The infants were either 3 or 6 months old. An observer-based response method was used. Modulation depth was varied adaptively to estimate thresholds. The noise was presented continuously at 70 dB SPL. Listeners detected 4-Hz modulation presented for 4 s. Adults thresholds were similar to those reported in the literature for trained listeners. Infants’ thresholds were substantially worse than those of adults, but 3- and 6-month-olds did not differ. This result is consistent with previous reports that 6–9-month-olds are immature in intensity discrimination. However, it is surprising that little change in performance occurs between 3 and 6 months, because infants of these ages differ in other measures of intensity processing. [Work supported by NIDCD.]
Static and dynamic spectro-temporal gap detection
Authors: Eddins David A. , Carlson Christine E.
Published: October 2013

Frequency-dependent measures of temporal processing are often based on temporal gap detection measured using sinusoids or bandpass noise. Some natural sounds, such as speech, are better characterized as relatively broadband sounds with low-amplitude portions restricted to narrow frequency regions. The present study reports the perception of analogous stimuli: static and dynamic spectro-temporal gaps embedded in broadband noise. In the first experiment, the temporal gap created a static spectral notch, the duration of which was the independent variable (gap duration in ms) and the width of which was fixed, in separate conditions being either 800 Hz or equal to one or three ERBs (equivalent rectangular bandwidth). The spectral notch was centered at either 800, 1600, 3200, or 6400 Hz. Gap onset relative to stimulus onset varied from 10 to 320 ms. In the second experiment, the temporal gap created a dynamic spectral notch, the lower and upper cutoff frequencies of which varied over the duration of the temporal gap much like a frequency sweep. Experimental parameters included the bandwidth of the notch in octaves and notch center frequency at gap onset and gap offset. The data will be considered in terms of temporal resolution, frequency resolution, and across-channel processing.
Spatiotemporal coding based on the responses of individual auditory-nerve fibers
Authors: Heinz Michael G.
Published: October 2013

Spatiotemporal coding has been suggested to provide a robust representation of vowel spectra, pitch, and tones in noise. However, much of the quantitative support has come from modeling studies because of the inherent variability in physiological population studies. A spectro-temporal manipulation procedure (STMP) was developed to simulate spatiotemporal patterns from the responses of individual auditory-nerve (AN) fibers to frequency-shifted stimuli with features placed around the fibers’ best frequency. Individual AN fiber responses from anesthetized cats were measured for vowellike stimuli as a function of vowel and background-noise level. Similar to previous population studies, the STMP results show that spatiotemporal coding of vowel spectra (quantified using ALSR) is more robust than average-rate coding as vowel or background-noise level increases. The STMP results also suggest that the response phase transition near low-frequency formants may not be sharp enough to provide as robust encoding as previously suggested. This method of simulating spatiotemporal patterns from individual AN fiber responses may be particularly useful for studying the effects of sensorineural hearing loss because it is particularly difficult to obtain large populations of responses from animals with hearing loss. Preliminary data have been collected from cats with noise-induced hearing loss. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD R03DC007348.]
Listening in the valleys with cochlear implants: Speech perception versus psychophysics
Authors: Chatterjee Monita , Peng Shu-Chen
Published: October 2013

Unlike listeners with normal hearing who can benefit from masking release with modulated noise, cochlear implant users show little release from masking when identifying words in sentences. Little is known about basic mechanisms underlying masking release in speech perception. In the present study, phoneme recognition was evaluated in implant users with tense vowels (/a, i, u, e, o/) and plosives (/p, t, k, b, d, g/) in quiet, steady-state noise and modulated noise at different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). In parallel psychophysical experiments, both modulation sensitivity and electrode discrimination were measured in the presence of on- and off-channel maskers, with different fluctuating envelopes. Results from three implant users indicated that unlike the previous findings with sentence materials, these individuals showed some masking release in phoneme recognition. All three participants exhibited masking release with the tense vowels at some SNRs, but only one showed release with the plosives. Modulation detection interference (MDI) was observed in these participants to varying degrees. Whereas MDI was observed in the two participants exhibiting little release with the plosives, no MDI was observed in the participant exhibiting release with the plosives. The relationship between implant users’ phoneme recognition and psychophysical performance will be discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD-R01DC04786.]
Auditory distinctiveness and the perception of voiceless stop consonants in continuous speech
Authors: Bishop Jason
Published: October 2013

Explaining the way in which listeners cope with the apparent lack of acoustic invariance as well as the phonetic ambiguity frequently encountered in continuous speech has remained problematic for models of speech perception. The voiceless stop consonants /p t k/, for example, are frequently unreleased word-finally. Despite the reduction in articulation and presumably in the distinctiveness of the acoustics signal, listeners appear quite accurate in identifying the correct stop consonant during conversation. Sets of words such as {shop, shot, shock} and {cheap, cheat, cheek} should, given the absence of release of the final stops, be difficult (if not impossible) to distinguish in isolation. In this study, listeners were presented with such lexical stimuli (in isolation as well as in semantically priming sentences) and tested for their perception of the word-final [p t k]. It was found that the amount of distinctive information carried in the acoustic signal for this class of sounds in the environment of interest was insufficient to consistently disambiguate listener impressions; further evidence for lack of perceptual salience is provided by an extremely weak resistance to semantic context effects. The results of this study highlight the value of an auditory dimension to perceptual studies in linguistic phonetics.
Perception of acoustically modified Mandarin tones
Authors: Lee Chao-Yang , Tao Liang , Bond Zinny S.
Published: October 2013

How well do listeners recognize tones when only partial acoustic information is available to them? Twelve minimal tone pairs including all six Mandarin tonal contrasts were digitally processed to generate four syllable modifications: silent-center, center-only, onset-only, and intact syllables. The syllables were recorded in two carrier phrases such that the offset of the carrier and the onset of the target were either a match or mismatch in fundamental frequency. The stimuli were presented in the original carrier phrase, excised from the carrier phrase, or excised and cross spliced with another carrier phrase. Forty native speakers of Mandarin Chinese were asked to identify the tone associated with each syllable. Response time and accuracy were measured. Listeners identified the tones at better than 90% correct with and without context except when they heard the syllable onset only; then, their identification accuracy fell to approximately 80%. A match or mismatch in fundamental frequency between the carrier and target tones made no difference in either reaction time or accuracy. Cross-spliced carrier phrases also did not compromise accuracy or reaction time. Tone 2 was identified least accurately. Listeners also took more time to identify tone 1 and tone 2 than the other two tones.
A lexical locus for the integration of asynchronous cues to voicing: An investigation with natural stimuli
Authors: Toscano Joseph , McMurray Bob
Published: October 2013

Speech perception requires integrating multiple asynchronous acoustic cues. Two questions pertinent to the integration of VOT and vowel length in word recognition were examined. First, this study asked whether lexical activation is sufficient to integrate these cues or if a sublexical buffer is required. Second, the role of stimulus type was examined since studies have found different results for synthetic and natural stimuli (Shinn et al., 1985; Miller and Wayland, 1993; Utman, 1998). An eye tracking methodology that is sensitive to timing and small differences in activation was used (McMurray et al., 2002). Stimuli were recordings of words (e.g., ‘‘beach’’ and ‘‘peach’’) whose initial VOT was manipulated along a nine-step continuum using splicing. The length of the following vowel was modified to create long and short vowels. Participants selected the correct object from screens containing the target, competitor, and two filler objects while eye movements were monitored. A small vowel length effect was found on voicing perception. This effect occurred substantially later in the fixation record than the effect of VOT. Thus, effects of vowel length can be seen in natural speech. Further, these cues each affect lexical activation as soon as they are available; no sublexical integration is required.
Wave-theoretic kernels for long-range ocean travel-time measurements
Authors: Cornuelle Bruce , Dzieciuch Matthew , Skarsoulis Emmanuel
Published: October 2013

Travel-time measurements have been a mainstay of long-range acoustic measurements, but the high sensitivity of ray paths to sound-speed perturbations makes the ray theory questionable. In the ray approximation travel times are sensitive to medium changes only along the corresponding eigenrays. Wave-theoretic modeling can be applied to obtain travel-time sensitivity kernels representing the amount by which ray travel times are affected by localized sound-speed variations anywhere in the medium. Propagation codes using the parabolic equation (PE) approximation allow the efficient calculation of these travel-time sensitivity kernels (TSK) in range-dependent environments that obey reciprocity. At high frequencies, the TSK becomes similar to the ray path. This work will explore the spatial frequency content of the TSK in comparison to expected ocean variability. It will also examine the stability of the TSK for range-dependent environments which produce strong sensitivity of ray paths to initial conditions. [Work supported by ONR.]
Tangent linear and second-order models from the Born and Rytov approximations
Authors: Skarsoulis Emmanuel , Piperakis George , Makrakis George
Published: October 2013

Adjoint and higher-order methods for the solution of inverse problems in underwater acoustics rely on tangent linear and higher-order models of the forward propagation problem, with respect to the underlying parameters of interest. The use of Born and Rytov approximations is examined for the representation of perturbations of the Green’s function and perturbations of the phase, respectively, caused by range-dependent variations of the sound-speed distribution about a range-independent background environment. Using the normal-mode representation for the background Green’s function and applying the stationary-phase approach in combination with analytic evaluation at singular points, closed-form expressions are derived for the first- and second-order perturbations of the Green’s function, generalizing previous perturbation results derived under the assumption of range independence. The resulting expressions for the phase show the second-order character of the phase (and the associated travel times) in the case of range-dependent, zero-mean sound-speed perturbations.
Design considerations for an idealized domestic surround-sound listening space
Authors: Moulton David
Published: October 2013

I have been actively involved in the production of music for surround-sound systems since the late 1960s, including composition, production, recording (classical, multichannel pop, and experimental), loudspeaker design, and acoustical design. Based on my experiences, I am going to present some design principles (and constraints) for domestic (and public) surround-sound playback spaces, possible loudspeaker configurations, and topologies. I will also suggest a possible ideal domestic music playback space.
Hydroacoustic observations of the 2004 megathrust earthquake and other events
Authors: de Groot-Hedlin Catherine
Published: October 2013

Hydroacoustic signals (T-waves) generated by the 2004 Great Sumatra earthquake were recorded by a network of 5 small hydroacoustic arrays located in the Indian Ocean at distances of 2800 to 7000 km from the epicenter. The array configurations allow for accurate determination of the receiver-to-source azimuth given coherent arrivals. Analysis of a series of 10-s windows within the T-wave coda shows that the receiver-to-source azimuth varies smoothly as a function of time, suggesting a nonstationary T-wave source. Apparent motion in the T-wave source has also been observed for many small-scale earthquakes and, for those events, reflects T-wave excitation over a broad expanse of the seafloor. For small-scale earthquakes, it is shown that the variations in the source azimuth are predictable using a seafloor scattering model. The azimuthal variations for the great Sumatra event are shown to be inconsistent with a small-scale source and are thus indicative of the rupture velocity. The data indicate that the rupture proceeded in two distinct phases; initially it progressed northwest at approximately 2.4 km/s along the Sunda trench. At 600 km from the epicenter, the rupture slowed to approximately 1.5 km/s.
Sound of hurricane
Authors: Naugolnykh Konstantin
Published: October 2013

The strong perturbation of atmosphere such as hurricane is accompanied by infrasound radiation. This radiation can be observed at a distance of thousands of miles from the hurricane. The effect of sound radiation is connected apparently to the interaction of the counterpropagating sea-surface waves that produces a sound radiation of the doubled frequency of the surface wave oscillation. [M. S. Longuet-Higgins, A theory of the origin of microseisms]. Theoretical model of the sound generation by the sea-surface waves is developed on the basis of the advanced theoretical approach [Wright et al., ‘‘Hurricane directional spectrum spatial variation in the open ocean,’’ J. Phys. Ocean. 31, 2472–2488 (2000)]. The spectrum of sound radiation is presented as a function of the sea-surface wave features. Some estimation of the parameters of infrasound produced by hurricane is made using the data of Wright et al. on the hurricane-produced sea-surface waves spectrum. The diffraction effects are taken into account to evaluate the trapping of the radiation by a horizontal atmospheric waveguide, important for the long-range propagation of the noise. [K. A. Naugolnykh, and S. A. Rybak, ‘‘Sound generation due to the interaction of surface waves,’’ Acoustical Physics 49, 88–90 (2003)].
Low-frequency sound reflection and conversion to Darcy-type type diffusion waves at bottom interfaces with marine sediments
Authors: Holmes Jason D. , Pierce Allan D. , Carey William M. , Lynch James F.
Published: October 2013

The upper medium is sea water, and the bottom medium is a marine sediment whose physical description is consistent with the theory advanced by Frenkel in 1944 and with the model proposed by Biot in 1961 for a porous medium at low frequencies. Within the sediment, three generic types (modes) of wavelike disturbances are possible. These three modes are here termed the acoustic, shear, and Darcy modes. The first two are governed by propagating wave equations and the third by a diffusion equation. The first and third are dilatational. All three are nominally uncoupled, although coupling occurs at interfaces. When an obliquely incident acoustic wave impinges from the water on the interface, all three types of disturbances are in principle excited in the sediment, and the details of the excitation are governed by interface conditions, whose derivation is reported in the present paper. Each mode has its own characteristic parameters, and the sediment reflection coefficient, considered as a function of angle of incidence and of frequency, implicitly depends on all of these parameters. The question is addressed as to how, given such reflection coefficient data, one might extract the parameters for the Darcy mode for representative realistic experimental circumstances.
The relation between received microbarom signals and the sea state under a hurricane
Authors: Waxler Roger , Gilbert Kenneth E. , Talmadge Carrick L.
Published: October 2013

It is known that the peak at about 0.2 Hz observed in both seismic (the microseism peak) and infrasound (the microbarom peak) spectra have their origin in the standing wave component of the ocean surface wave spectrum. The largest source of microseism and microbarom radiation is known to be from the sea states built up under hurricanes. In 1963 Hasselmann published a relation between the ocean wave spectrum and the microseism signal produced by the ocean waves. We have recently derived an analogous expression for the microbarom signal. This expression is presented and possible implications for remote monitoring of hurricane intensity are discussed.
Tissue characterization using novel high-frequency models
Authors: Oelze Michael
Published: October 2013

Conventional models for ultrasound tissue scattering at conventional ultrasound frequencies (less than 15 MHz) were insufficient for differentiating between two kinds of solid tumors in mice that had clear morphological differences. F-tests on backscattered power spectra from the two kinds of tumors revealed significant differences between the two curves for frequencies above 16 MHz. New models were constructed to better reflect the ultrasonic interaction with underlying tissue structure. One model considered only the cell nucleus as a dominant source of scattering. A second model, the whole cell model, considered the nucleus and cytoskeletal structure. These models were used at high ultrasonic frequencies (16 to 70 MHz) to characterize the two kinds of tumors and compared with scatterer estimates using a conventional model, the spherical Gaussian model. The nucleus model revealed significant differences between the two kinds of tumors but scatterer estimates did not match the underlying structure as observed from optical photomicrographs. The whole cell model did not reveal significant differences but scatterer estimates matched underlying structure. [Work supported by NIH Grant F32 CA96419 and start-up funds from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.]
Imaging with high-frequency annular arrays
Authors: Ketterling Jeffrey A. , Ramachandran Sarayu , Silverman Ronald H. , Aristizábal Orlando , Turnbull Daniel H.
Published: October 2013

Frederic Lizzi helped pioneer the use of high-frequency ultrasound (HFU) for ophthalmic imaging and disease diagnosis. A limitation of HFU single-element transducers is their limited depth-of-field (≊1 mm). One approach to improve the DOF for HFU applications is to use annular arrays. A five-element, 40-MHz annular array was developed for ophthalmic and small-animal imaging. The array consisted of a 9-μm PVDF film bonded to a patterned, copper-clad polyimide film. An experimental system was assembled to permit the digitization of radio-frequency (rf) data from the array. The rf data were collected from all transmit/receive ring pairs and the data were later postprocessed. The performance of the array was first validated with a wire phantom and then in vitro data were acquired from excised bovine eyes and a cadaver eye. In vivo data were acquired from an anesthetized rabbit and from mouse embryos. Image comparisons were made between rf data that had been summed with no delay corrections and rf data that had been processed with a synthetic-focusing algorithm. Synthetic-focus images showed a clear improvement in DOF in terms of image brightness and enhanced membrane and cavity-boundary definition. [This research was supported in part by grants from the NIH (EY014371 and NS038461).]
Scaling of flutelike instruments : An analysis from the point of view of the hydrodynamic instability of the jet
Authors: Fabre Benoit , Montgermont Nicolas , Gabriels Johan
Published: October 2013

The sound produced by musical instruments of the flute family is the result of the efforts of the instrument maker as well as those of the player. For instance, different instruments of a recorder consort show, on one hand, dimensions optimized by the maker for their individual compass as well as for a global identity and coherence of the whole consort. On the other hand, the players have to adapt their blowing to each instrument of the consort. Therefore, the study of the different instruments has to include the geometry given by the maker as well as the required blowing conditions. The study reported here presents data gathered on different flute families: the geometries and the instrument passive resonances are studied together with the behavior of the instruments under artificial blowing and, finally, under the control of a musician. The analysis of the data in terms of the jet hydrodynamic instability offers an efficient framework to describe the choices of the maker and the adaptation of the player.
The acoustical education of an architect
Authors: Siebein Gary
Published: October 2013

Sound can provide valuable contributions to the education and practice of architecture. First, architecture students should develop a theory of how sound and other environmental systems can become part of a larger theory of the making of architecture. Second, architects are trained to have highly developed sensibilities in the aesthetic design of space. Expanding the aesthetic component of buildings and environments to include the aural environment has the potential to enrich the fabric of communities and buildings. Third, architecture students must become acquainted with the materials, analytic techniques, and design approaches that acoustical consultants use. Furthermore, for acoustical information to become an integral part of architectural design and education, it must be organized in a way that allows expression or poesis to occur because these aesthetic principles are the building blocks of architectural design. Therefore, the science and engineering principles of noise control and architectural acoustics must be transformed into material that can become spatial, visual, and manipulable in creative ways by a design team. This requires that the basics of acoustics be reformulated in an architectural manner. This paper will address several of the transformations that have been attempted in the architectural curriculum at the University of Florida.