bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Noise management features of the open speech platform
Authors: Liang Mingchao , Chen Kuan-Lin , Zhang Wenyu , Lee Ching-Hua , Rao Bhaskar D. , Garudadri Harinath
Published: November 2019

In this contribution, we present the noise management features of the Open Speech Platform (OSP) for hearing aid (HA) research. OSP includes basic HA modules (i) subband decomposition, (ii) wide dynamic range compression and (iii) adaptive feedback cancellation; a baseline single-channel speech enhancement (SE) based on Wiener filtering for noise subtraction. We extended OSP noise management to include a generalized sidelobe cancellation (GSC) beamforming between left and right channels, followed by the SE. Time is the scarcest resource, followed by central processing unit (CPU) resources in commercial HAs. With the proposed GSC + SE approach, we were both time and CPU limited. Release 2019a of OSP has 5.6 ms end-to-end latency and GSC requires an additional 5 ms, putting us above the 10 ms requirement. The wearable device of OSP has 4 cores, C0 – C3. C0 is used for all non-realtime tasks such as kernel, embedded web server, etc. and remaining cores are used for realtime tasks. Naive realization of GSC results in one or more cores not meeting the realtime constraints, resulting in audible artifacts. We present optimizations to meet time and CPU budgets; and preliminary objective and subjective results of the proposed system.
Researcher and user interfaces for studies of hearing-aid self-adjustment
Authors: Boothroyd Arthur , Mackersie Carol L. , Garudadri Harinath , Zubaity Tamara
Published: November 2019

The “Goldilocks” explore-and-select protocol of Boothroyd and Mackersie was adapted for field studies of hearing-aid self-fitting and incorporated into the wearable UCSD open-source speech-processing platform (OSP). A researcher interface allows adjustment of hearing aid parameters, including starting response for self-adjustment; compression parameters; and number, consequence, and step size of listener controls. The listener-interface provides for adjustment of level and spectrum using either three controls (overall gain plus low- and high-frequency tilt) or two controls (overall gain and overall spectral tilt). Response selections made in specific acoustic environments can be saved, named, and recalled. Both interfaces are accessible via web-browser on any web-enabled device, including a listener’s smart-phone. Every listener-adjustment is logged and options are available for logging information about the ambient noise plus the listener’s reasons for, and satisfaction with, response modifications. These interfaces were created using HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and use PHP to communicate information with the embedded webserver on the wearable platform. This web framework is faster and easier to customize than is a native application, and it supports the iterative design required in research. Instructions for customizing the interface are included. They vary in challenge, from editing a text document to modifying documented, readable code.
Friction dampers—Everything old is new again
Authors: Ginsberg Jerry H.
Published: November 2019

The title is suggested by a delightful song and dance scene in the film “All That Jazz” (1979). Due to the author's lack of grace, rather than repeating that performance, the presentation will explore a concept suggested by the friction draft gear patented by George Westinghouse in 1888. It and variants are in wide use throughout the North American railroad system. The idea to be examined exploits the fact that the normal forces on the faces of a wedge are greatly magnified, thereby enhancing the friction force associated with the Coulomb friction model. Because of this behavior a simple oscillator whose moving mass is a spring-loaded wedge can absorb much more vibrational energy than other passive techniques. Dynamic analysis of a one-degree-of-freedom model leads to an algebraic expression for the energy dissipated per unit cycle. That formula indicates that critical damping ratios much greater than one are readily obtainable if the springs are precompressed sufficiently. The simplicity of the underlying physical system implies that it is scalable over a large range, from MEMS to seismic structures. A particularly interesting idea is to fabricate a metamaterial consisting of an array of wedge dampers.
Parametric study on shape of two-dimensional acoustic black holes
Authors: Cao Shuai , Lim Kian Meng , Lee Heow Pueh
Published: November 2019

With the deployment of the passive damping in Acoustic Black Holes (ABH), the effectiveness of ABH in absorbing vibration are improved, as demonstrated in beam-plate structures. Apart from previous studies on the one dimensional ABH (by changing parameters such as the length, power-index of ABH thickness profile, and distribution of damping layer), this paper presents the study of the influence of the shape of a two-dimensional ABH on its absorptive performance. Keeping the area and amount of damping constant over the ABH region, different shapes of ABH embedded in the semi-infinitely long plate were simulated and studied using a finite element model. Dissipated power ratio (DPR) and root-mean-square velocity (RMSV) of the ABH region were measured to evaluate the ABH dissipative behaviors. Structural intensity was also used to visualize and analyze the flow of vibration energy in the system. These analyses of SI propose the correlation between the energy flow and the absorptive performances of ABH. This link between the energy flow and the shape of ABH provides a way to design an ABH for better absorption and dissipation of vibroacoustic energy in the system.
Predicting the impact of hearing aid processing on speech intelligibility
Authors: Hunt Robyn , Bell Steven , Simpson David
Published: November 2019

Speech intelligibility is usually assessed using subjective tests, but several objective measures of speech intelligibility have also been proposed. This study compares intelligibility of IEEE sentences in collocated speech-shaped noise, recorded through a low-cost amplifier and three current-issue NHS hearing aids with single-channel noise reduction settings switched on and off. Results from twenty-one normal hearing listeners indicates that single-channel noise reduction algorithms can significantly improve intelligibility of noisy speech (p < 0.05), but no differences can be seen between different hearing aid models currently available on the NHS. The low-cost, off-the shelf hearing amplifier performed significantly worse than the NHS prescribed devices. Three objective speech intelligibility measures were applied to the recordings. None of the objective metrics was found to accurately predict the outcomes seen in this study for all hearing aid conditions, though general trends can be predicted (r = 0.83 overall, but for any discrete signal-to-noise ratio across all conditions, maximum r = 0.64). Machine-learning approaches were used to refit parameters from the best performing of these metrics. Although performance was improved, problems in predicting particular conditions remain, suggesting that objective measures do not encompass all relevant factors. [Action on Hearing Loss (England/Wales Registered Charity Number 207720).]
Duration and amplitude of tone production in children with cochlear implants
Authors: Yang Jing , Xu Li
Published: November 2019

The purpose of the present study was two-fold: (1) to examine whether Mandarin-speaking children with CIs showed distinctive durational and amplitude features for the four lexical tones in their tone production; (2) to compare the duration and amplitude patterns of Mandarin lexical tones in monosyllables produced in citation form between CI children and age-matched normal-hearing (NH) children. The participants included 14 prelingually deafened Mandarin-speaking children with CIs and 14 NH children, all aged between 2.9 and 8.3 years old. Each participant produced five CV syllables (fa, fu, pi, xu, ke) in four tones through a tone drill activity. The vowel duration and rms amplitude values at nine equidistant time locations over the vowel duration were obtained. The results revealed that the CI children can produce distinctive duration and amplitude features for the four lexical tones. Their durational pattern and amplitude contours were highly similar to the NH children on tone 1, 2, and 4 but differed from the NH children on tone 3. In addition, NH children showed positively correlated amplitude contour and F0 contour but the CI children demonstrated inconsistent amplitude and F0 contours for tone 3. This finding suggested that the amplitude contour of a tone and the F0 contour of the same tone may not always be highly correlated.
Assessing head-and-neck cancer patient speech with the vowel dispersion index
Authors: Kelley Matthew C. , Aalto Daniel
Published: November 2019

The present study uses a measure of the dispersion of density throughout the vowel space—called the vowel dispersion index—to assess speech patterns in head-and-neck cancer patients. The vowel dispersion index is based on calculating the total variation of the density values in Story and Bunton’s (2017) convex hull representation of vowel space density. Overall, the vowel dispersion index quantifies how much change there is throughout the vowel space density. The vowel dispersion index is calculated and analyzed for a sample of 333 recordings of the zoo passage from 107 head-and-neck cancer patients at different stages pre- and post-surgery. Linear mixed-effects regression suggests that the vowel dispersion index is not greatly influenced by the time elapsed since a patient underwent surgery. In contrast, vowel space area is reduced following surgery. These trends suggest that patients retain control of the dispersion of their vowels throughout the vowel space, even after surgery. Their vowel space area does place a constraint on the degree to which they can disperse their vowel tokens, however. These findings are discussed with respect to phonetic theory, principally, Lindblom’s (1990) H&H theory.
Rating speech intelligibility using raw-audio as the input to a deep neural-network
Authors: Chen Siyu , Kelley Matthew C. , Aalto Daniel , Tucker Benjamin V.
Published: November 2019

Objective measurement of speech intelligibility is a challenge when working with speech-impaired patients. Speech intelligibility scores (the average transcription accuracy across a set of words or sentences by a listener) are a common way of assessing disordered speech. Human-based measurements are less than ideal due to individual differences in listening ability, the time it takes to collect the measures, and other challenges. The present study investigates deep neural networks for fast, automatic, and objective speech intelligibility scoring of head-and-neck cancer patients. We assessed models using the raw acoustic signal as the input to a network with multiple convolutional layers. It is believed that when the raw acoustic signal is used as the input, a convolutional network acts as a filter bank optimized for intelligibility scoring. We report the model accuracy results of repeated training, testing, and comparison of different model structures. Further, we compare the results using a 10-fold cross-validation approach and report the average correlation between the predicted and actual values.
Novel acoustic measures of coarticulation reveal morphological planning in child speech
Authors: Cychosz Margaret , Johnson Keith
Published: November 2019

How do children plan and represent morphologically complex words throughout childhood? We employed coarticulation as a lexical planning metric in speakers of South Bolivian Quechua (SBQ), a highly agglutinating language with over 200 suffixes. 10 adult and 50 child (age 5–10) SBQ speakers completed a real word repetition task. V-C coarticulation was measured in the sequences [ap] and [am] in two contexts: within root morphemes (e.g., papa ‘potato’) or at morpheme boundaries (e.g., llama-pi ‘llama-locative’). Acoustic analysis of coarticulation using formant tracking is complicated in child speech because of children’s short vocal tracts and high f0. Following Gerosa et al. (in IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speed and Signal Processing Proceedings (2006), Vol. 1, pp. 393–396), we quantified the degree and time course of coarticulation in Mel-frequency spectral differences. Results show that adults distinguished acoustically between phones more at morpheme boundaries than within morphemes, while children did not distinguish. This conclusion is further evidence that adults decompose words and plan them online. The lack of distinction in child speech, however, suggests that children may be accessing these complex words holistically, even in this highly agglutinating language.
Large-scale acoustic characterization of mid-low vowels across American, British, and Singaporean children
Authors: Gu Yuling , Chen Nancy
Published: November 2019

This study compares how American, British and Singaporean children differ in their production of mid-low vowels. Read speech was collected from 6–13 years old American children (140 speakers, 43 406 utterances), British children (82 speakers, 32 542 utterances) and Singaporean children (192 speakers, 34 457 utterances), with a balanced gender ratio. All three corpora were designed to be phonetically balanced and formant estimates were extracted from the vowel tokens using the Praat software. Our large-scale acoustic analyses show that for TRAP-BATH split vowels, (1) British and Singaporean children both produce these vowels with higher F1, suggesting a relatively lowered tongue height; (2) These vowels have higher F2 (suggesting a more fronted tongue position) for both American and Singaporean children. One-way ANOVA tests reached statistical significance for all these differences; F(2,411) = 34.59, p < 0.001 for F1; F(2,411) = 544.13, p < 0.001 for F2. When comparing /æ/ and /ɛ/ productions, British speakers demonstrate the clearest distinction between the two vowels; Singaporean and American speakers both exhibit a higher and more fronted tongue position for /æ/, causing /æ/ to be more acoustically similar to /ɛ/. One-way ANOVA tests and post hoc Tukey’s test demonstrated that these differences are all statistically significant too (p < 0.001).
The late acquisition of coarticulatory patterns associated with English liquid articulation
Authors: Howson Phil J. , Redford Melissa
Published: November 2019

The late acquisition of liquids is well documented and attributed to the simultaneous anterior and posterior lingual constrictions required. But adult-like segmental production also entails the acquisition of coarticulatory patterns. Liquids are interesting in this regard because they have exceptionally strong effects on their surround, including long-distance anticipatory effects. The current study investigated the development of these effects in 5-year-old, 8-year-old, and adult speech using a previously validated perceptually based measurement technique (Redford et al., 2018). Ten participants per age-group produced minimal pair words with /r/ and /l/ onsets in sentences with several unstressed function words preceding the target liquid. Overall results indicated longer distance anticipatory effects for /r/ than /l/. Two group differences were also identified: anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ was equal to /r/ in 5-year-old speech, and greater than anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ in 8-year-old or adult speech. The results indicate distinct timing patterns for English /r/ and /l/. We suggest that the greater anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ observed in 5-year-olds’ speech may indicate its default articulation in a running speech context, and that the development of its adult-like articulation therefore requires learning to inhibit extensive pre-posturing. [Work funded by NIH grant No. R01HD087452.]
Temporal extent of anticipatory lip rounding in child and adult speech
Authors: Redford Melissa , Kallay Jeffrey , Potratz Jill
Published: November 2019

Look-ahead models predict that anticipatory lip rounding is defined segmentally: for example, extending backwards from the target to the first segment specified for rounding. Gestural models predict that it is limited by the duration of the activation interval, which is why coarticulatory effects are weaker in slow speech compared to fast speech. This study investigated the temporal extent of anticipatory rounding in child versus adult speech with these model predictions in mind. Child speech is slower than adult speech. It is also purportedly equally coarticulated as adult speech, but long-distance effects are underexamined. Two groups of school-aged children, 5- and 8-year-olds, and one group of adults produced simple subject-verb-object sentences. The vowel of the object noun contained either the same unrounded vowel as the verb or a different rounded vowel. An unstressed determiner intervened between the verb and noun. Coarticulatory extent was measured perceptually using gated AV speech. Rounding was found to extend backwards to the preceding stressed vowel in both child and adult speech, and so up to (roughly) 400 ms before the target in 5-year-olds’ speech compared to 340 ms in 8-year-olds’ speech and 235 ms in adults’ speech. These results are more easily reconciled with look-ahead model predictions than with gestural model predictions. [Work supported by NICHD grant #R01HD087452.]
Are there any differences between the tongue and posterior pharyngeal wall movement patterns during normal and Masako swallow?—An ultrasound analysis
Authors: Wang Emily , Maxwell Adam , Verhagen Metman Leonard A.
Published: November 2019

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative movement disorder affecting volitional movement due to Dopamine-producing neuron death in the substantia nigra. Impaired swallow function is highly prevalent with nearly 100% involvement in PD during the disease course and involves all three phases of swallowing. The oral stage of swallowing is impaired first. Reduced bolus control and reduced interior-to-posterior movement of the bolus transfer lead to delayed swallowing response, premature spillage, decreased base of tongue (BOT) retraction and strength, decreased hyolarygneal elevation and excursion, and reduced action of pharyngeal constrictors. Together, these result in bolus retention, residue throughout the pharynx, and reduced airway protection leading to significant aspiration. To target these deficits we have designed an exercise regime to teach early to mid-stage PD patients to do the Masako swallow maneuver of saliva (swallow with tongue-tip held between teeth), with high intensity and frequency (i.e., 120 repetitions per day) in one month. The preliminary results are very promising. All participant demonstrated positive changes. To understand the underlying mechanism, we used Ultrasound and recorded 20 normal subjects while they did three normal swallows and 3 Masako swallow maneuver. The initial observations indicated the tongue and pharyngeal movement patterns differ between the two maneuvers.
Defense applications of Edmund J. Sullivan’s acoustic signal processing concepts and methods
Authors: Ferguson Brian G.
Published: November 2019

Passive acoustic signal processing for defense involves the detection, classification, localization and tracking of sound sources. Ed Sullivan posited that “acoustic signals carry information in their kinematics, as well as their spatial and temporal phase structure, so that including information in the signal model will provide enhanced performance.” This idea is applied to the practical defense problem of locating the point-of-origin of hostile sniper fire by processing the acoustic signals sensed by a receiving array. Superior acoustic source localization performance is achieved by including the deceleration of the bullet in the signal model. Next, Ed’s passive synthetic aperture methods are applied to the inverse problem of estimating the source (or rest) frequencies and flight motion parameters of turboprop aircraft and helicopters using a single acoustic sensor and then, an array of sensors. In this case, the source signal is temporally coherent and the source kinematics is contained in the received Doppler-shifted signals. Finally, source localization of broadband signals using cross-correlation methods is observed to fail when the different phase structures of the received signals lead to them being uncorrelated, which can be remedied by differential Doppler compensation.
Array signal processing methods for achieving super-resolution using vortex waves
Authors: Young Andrew , Guild Matthew D. , Rogers Jeffrey S.
Published: November 2019

Helicoidal (vortex) acoustic waves have received much interest lately and can be generated by a variety of means, such as applying a prescribed phase shift to the elements of conventional 2-D planar arrays or by employing a leaky wave antenna in a circular arrangement. In the context of array signal processing, the beampattern associated with vortex wave generation has a strong central null that can be exploited to achieve far field super-resolution in a variety of applications. Although recent physical acoustics research into vortex waves has focused on active applications such as particle manipulation or propagating sub-diffraction-limit features into the far field, vortex waves can also be utilized in passive applications such as source localization. This work investigates the signal processing implications of using vortex waves in both active and passive regimes. Key trade-offs between conventional, adaptive, and vortex-wave-based array signal processing methods are examined by simulating a variety of array geometries and source/target configurations. Results indicate the potential for vortex wave methods to provide performance improvements over conventional and adaptive methods such as MVDR (minimum variance distortionless response) and MUSIC (multiple signal classification) in snapshot-deficient and high-bearing-rate target scenarios.
On the sound speed dispersion and the frequency dependence of sound attenuation in a fine-grained sediment in the New England Mud Patch
Authors: Wan Lin , Badiey Mohsen , Knobles David , Wilson Preston S.
Published: November 2019

The study on the sound speed dispersion and the frequency dependence of sound attenuation in marine sediments is of great importance in understanding the physics of sound propagation in the sea bottom. Modal dispersion curves (MDC) have only been utilized to estimate the low-frequency sound speed. At higher frequencies (i.e., above a few hundred hertz), arrival time difference for different modes generally become smaller and MDC is difficult to extract because of the cross-mode interference. This paper applies time-frequency representations (TFR) with high time-frequency resolution (e.g., optimal-kernel and center-affine-filtered TFR) to broadband acoustic signals (e.g., 31g explosive and combustive source signals) detonated along the 15-km Northwest-Southeast tracks during the Seabed Characterization Experiment in the New England Mud Patch, which has a surface fine-grained sediment layer overlying a sandy bottom. The resulting high-resolution broadband (150–1500 Hz) MDC, in conjunction with TL data, are fed to a previously developed two-step dimension-reduced geoacoustic inversion algorithm including modal dispersion-based inversion for sound speed and energy-based inversion for attenuation [IEEE J. Ocean. Eng., 44, in print, (2019)]. The estimated sound speed and attenuation are compared with the theoretical results from seabed geoacoustic models for fine-grained sediments. [Work supported by ONR Ocean Acoustics (322OA).]
Curtis Institute of Music—Organ studio renovation
Authors: Clayton Dan
Published: November 2019

Inspection of former percussion studios in the Curtis mansion basement revealed a warren of four small rooms more like dungeon cells than a future organ studio. Acoustic tile ceilings hid a hodge-podge of noisy air-handling equipment, plus a hundred-year accumulation of pipes, conduit and cables. The client’s initial plans for a “paint and carpet” refresh quickly evolved into a major renovation, with a particular design challenge presented by three massive brick piers dividing the studio into four distinct spaces. The largest room became the teaching studio with organ console, a middle room the organ chamber, an internal corridor serves as a sound expansion space for the chamber, and the smallest room holds noisy mechanical equipment and organ blower. Sound isolation ceilings prevent “noise” from traveling up to meeting and reception space above. A lower, finished studio ceiling hides building infrastructure from view, and also functions as a sound distribution space connecting organ chamber to grilles beside and behind the console. Walls have diffuser panels to scatter sound and mid/low-frequency absorber panels to prevent boominess and excessive loudness. The small studio sounds much larger than its actual size, with a pleasant sense of spaciousness and envelopment for organist and listeners.
Small town factory into modern multi-purpose music hall
Authors: Manley David , De La Cruz Rolando
Published: November 2019

The Murphy Arts District in El Dorado, Arkansas is the redevelopment of historic and unique community assets to re-brand the community as a cultural performance mecca and to revitalize the local economy. The first completed phase of the project includes transformation of the historic two-level Griffin Automotive Building into a restaurant and indoor music venue. Acoustic challenges included renovation of a very large volume former factory space into a flat floor music venue to accommodate events from touring rock amplified concerts to wedding banquets. Sound isolation between the music hall and the attached restaurant also presented challenges with historic building constructions.
Developing standard exposure-response relationships to inform protected area management
Authors: Fristrup Kurt M.
Published: November 2019

The "Schultz Curve," which was embodied in ANSI Standard S12.9 Part 4, has been a central informative tool for urban planning and noise impact analyses. Numerous field studies have been conducted by the Volpe Transportation Center and others to develop the foundation for the same type of tool for national parks. I will review what these studies have revealed, and how they compare with the urban noise standard. Park settings vary more widely than urban environments, so one challenge for devising a standard is addressing the potential variety of receptors and the contexts in which effects could be analyzed. The complexity of this issue increases dramatically when considering the nonhuman receptors of noise in national parks, and the effects of noise on human-wildlife interactions.
Damage potential index: A single numeric expression for noise exposure impacts
Authors: Stocker Michael A.
Published: November 2019

Regulatory noise exposure thresholds are currently based exclusively on exposure amplitude. These thresholds were only recently bracketed in the frequency domain by auditory bands of marine mammals in a set of “M weighting” curves. While these curves are an improvement on understanding and applying regulatory thresholds for “Level B” behavioral disturbance exposures, the suite of regulatory guidelines still falls short of expressing actual damage or disruption potential of any particular noise exposure. A correlation between signal kurtosis (of amplitude variability over time) and hearing damage has been well established – with overall signal amplitude remaining an important variable. Understanding that regulators prefer single numeric “go/no go” thresholds has likely been a factor in not adopting any more nuanced expressions of exposure damage potential. We are proposing a single numeric that integrates both amplitude and kurtosis in the time/frequency domain as a “damage potential index” which would more accurately express the impacts of a disturbing or damaging sound.
Accessing standardized acoustic metadata: A web-based graphical interface for an acoustic metadata server
Authors: Cavner Jeffery , Roch Marie , Whitney Roger , Baumann-Pickering Simone
Published: November 2019

The Tethys acoustic metadata workbench consists of a set of vocabulary terms designed to provide a standard method to represent detections, classifications, and localizations of biological, ambient, and anthropogenic signals in acoustic data; and a database that permits users to archive and manipulate these data as well as access contextual data such as ephemeris, sea surface temperature, etc. We present a new graphical web client for Tethys that adds a robust set of tools for extensive data exploration in a visualization environment that includes maps and data conversion utilities along with the ability to save queries to provide repeatable results. The web interface provides the ability to query and visualize acoustic data from a web browser with little prior experience. A graphical interface permits the generation of queries without knowledge of the underlying XQuery database language. The standard mode is designed for users with limited knowledge of the Tethys schemata to obtain basic information, see results on a map, and save data in a variety of formats such as Matlab, CSV, and R. Advanced users can switch to a more comprehensive interface that lets them construct and share more sophisticated queries for general use.
Long-term exposure to substrate-borne vibrations and the behavioral response of field crickets (Gryllidae)
Authors: Briggs Jessica , Howard Daniel R.
Published: November 2019

Anthropogenic noise is a present in most landscapes, with a variety of impacts documented across taxa. Much of the research investigating the impact of anthropogenic noise on animals in terrestrial ecosystems has focused primarily on airborne sound, with little attention to substrate borne vibrations. Many invertebrates rely on substrate borne signals and cues to communicate and detect predators or prey, but little is understood about the impact of substrate-borne vibrational noise on invertebrate behavior. We designed an experiment to determine if wild populations of field crickets (Gryllus pennsylvanicus and G. veletis) that occupy habitats close to heavily trafficked roadways typified by high levels of substrate-borne vibrational noise displayed a lower response to substrate-borne cues compared to populations in quiet locations. Low frequency substrate-borne vibrational stimuli (100–1000 Hz bandpass brown noise) was played back to singing males in the field to determine behavioral thresholds to vibration. Populations at roadside sites were exposed to substrate vibrations of 0.36–0.40 mm/s peak to peak while crickets at quiet sites were exposed to 0.29–0.30 mm/s peak to peak. Behavioral threshold responses of each population are presented.
Additional data on the lower jaw morphology in odontocetes: Panbone thickness
Authors: Sysueva Evgeniya , Nechaev Dmitry
Published: November 2019

The mandibular hypothesis by Norris (1968, 1969) mandible implies that in odontocetes, sounds pass to the ear through a mandibular window (panbone) where the bone is fairly thin and the intra-mandibular fat body. However, thickness of the bone depends on size of the animal. In small and medium-sized odontocetes it is 0.57 to 2 mm, whereas in large ones, such as the killer whale, it attains 5.48 mm (Nummela et al., 2007), which may worsen the conditions for sound penetration into the fatty body. Despite the thick panbone region, the hearing of the killer whale is not inferior to that of smaller odontocetes. These facts encouraged us to obtain additional data on the lower jaw morphology. We 3-D-scanned and analyzed 19 mandibles from adult odontocetes of various species: the porpoises, Irrawaddy dolphin, common dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, beluga, and killer whale. The panbone thickness was measured in all the samples. Results of the study did not reveal a direct correlation of the body size and panbone thickness. Further, the obtained data will be useful for making a mathematical model of sound conduction dependence on the panbone thickness. [Work supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant # 17-74-20107 to E.V.S.]
Sounds from airguns and blue whales recorded from a long term hydrophone network in the Southern Indian Ocean
Authors: Torterotot Maëlle , Samaran Flore , Royer Jean-Yves
Published: November 2019

The Southern Indian Ocean is a seasonal habitat for different blue whale sub species and sub populations. Their presence has been demonstrated by continuous acoustic records from the OHASISBIO hydrophone network, deployed since 2010 and which comprises 5 to 9 fixed mooring sites spread over a region from 24 deg to 56 deg South and from 52 deg to 83 deg East. Automated detection based on dictionaries and sparse representation has been used to detect and count the different stereotyped or non-stereotyped calls emitted by blue whales and recorded in this long-term dataset. However false alarm rate increased sometimes by the detection of a recurrent interference in the same frequency band of blue whales: the airgun shots produce during surveys for oil and gas located somewhere in the Indian Ocean and beyond. This finding allows us to characterize the seasonal and interannual variability in airgun sounds in this blue whale habitat. This study reinforce the fact that anthropogenic noise could be detected at large scale in pelagic environment and may affect marine mammal specially species who used low frequency bands.
Cuvier’s beaked whale tracks in Southern California
Authors: Snyder Eric , Wiggins Sean M. , Baumann-Pickering Simone , Hildebrand John
Published: November 2019

Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) are difficult to study due to infrequent sightings and their deep-diving behavior. One approach to studying their behavior is to use arrays of hydrophones to localize and track individual beaked whales. We collected over one year of small aperture (∼1 m) broadband acoustic array recordings at different sites offshore of the coast of Southern California, a region with a considerable presence of Cuvier’s beaked whales. We use the time difference of arrival between hydrophone pairs in our arrays to determine the direction of an echolocating beaked whale. When the source directions are cross-fixed from multiple arrays, the location of an animal can be determined and sequential locations can be used to form tracks. Tracks were used to determine a number of signal characteristics, such as source sound pressure level, beam directionality, and click temporal patterns as well as a number of animal behaviors including swim speed, group size, descent angle, and foraging depth.
Passive acoustic monitoring to assess depredation of killer whales on demersal longlines during soaking
Authors: Richard Gaëtan , Bonnel Julien , Guinet Christophe , Samaran Flore
Published: November 2019

Toothed whales feeding on fish caught on longlines is a growing issue worldwide. This issue named depredation has a serious socio-economic impact and raise conservation questions. In the French Patagonian toothfish fishery (Southern Ocean), a good understanding of the depredation behavior by killer whales is urgently needed to find adequate mitigation solutions. However, depredation on demersal longlines has been historically assessed from surface observation during hauling phases, thus the underwater dimension of depredation is not understood. Here, we used passive acoustic monitoring to record echolocation activity of killer whales and fishing vessels’ acoustic signatures during the fishing activity. Fixed hydrophone deployed on soaking longlines without any fishing activity nearby has recorded echolocation sounds. These recordings suggest that killer whales were feeding within the vicinity of longlines and thus very likely depredating on soaking longlines. Additionally, we also investigated fishing vessels’ acoustic signatures. We observed differences of acoustic cues emitted by the vessels between the setting and hauling phases. This suggests that killer whales may be able to recognize the boat activity and therefore localize longline positions to depredate.
Identification of species-specific delphinid echolocation click types
Authors: Cohen Rebecca , Leu Amanda , Frasier Kaitlin E. , Soldevilla Melissa , Hildebrand John
Published: November 2019

Delphinid echolocation clicks are often recorded in large, high-quality datasets collected by moored autonomous passive acoustic sensors, but the particular species present during these acoustic encounters is generally unknown. We combined two acoustic data types with visual observations to obtain species identity for some of these clicks. We assigned species identity to acoustic encounters in eight years of recordings at five western North Atlantic mooring sites using sighting data from contemporaneous shipboard and aerial visual surveys. We also assigned species identity to acoustic encounters in towed acoustic array data collected concurrent with visual surveys during four ship-based cetacean surveys in the western North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. 114 mooring encounters with seven species and 181 towed array encounters with nine species were labeled this way. We identified recurring click types during all encounters using an unsupervised clustering algorithm to groups clicks based on pairwise spectral distances. Labeled click types thus identified in the moored data were compared to labeled click types identified in the towed array data to determine their consistency and utility for delphinid species discrimination in moored passive acoustic data. Results for bottlenose dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, Risso’s dolphin, and pilot whales will be presented.
Measurements of the speed of sound and attenuation of healthy and malignant prostate cells
Authors: Herd Maria-Teresa , Taylor Penelope , Longstreth Amy
Published: November 2019

The National Institute of Health reports that for men prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the second most common cause of death due to cancer. The most recent data show that there are about 186 new cases of prostate cancer per 100,000 men, with 24 deaths per 100,000 men each year. Prostate cancer is difficult to detect and diagnose. Currently prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels are tested, and biopsies are performed if the PSA levels are high. This is not a very accurate indicator, since two thirds of all biopsies are benign. This study explores the possibility of using quantitative ultrasound as a diagnostic for prostate cancer, by studying the differences in tissue properties between benign and malignant prostate cells. Speed of sound and attenuation as a function of frequency between 2 and 18 MHz were measured and compared for a cancerous prostate cell line and a healthy prostate cell line. Speed of sound for the cancerous cells line was found to be 1521.4 ± 0.8 m/s, which was equivalent to the speed of sound for the healthy cell line of 1521.5 ± 0.6 m/s. The average attenuation coefficient was 0.091 ± 0.003 dB/(cm MHz) for the cancerous prostate cell line and 0.057 ± 0.003 dB/(cm MHz) for the healthy prostate cell line, showing a higher attenuation for the cancerous cell line.
Effect of ultrasound on fibrin clot structure
Authors: Levengood Sheeny L. , Song Sophia , Beebe Sarah , Hannah Alex , Genstler Curtis , Noble-Vranish Misty L.
Published: November 2019

A commercially available catheter (EKOS EkoSonic catheter) has been used in the clinic with lytic drugs to clear blood clots associated with pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and peripheral arterial occlusion. Operating at 2.3 MHz, transducers within the catheter deliver short, variable amplitude pulses at intensities between 3.4 and 11.5 W/cm2. Lysis enhancement in the presence of ultrasound is non-thermal and generally attributed to increased transport and, therefore, increased efficiency of the lytic. The enhanced lytic effect may also be associated with increased availability of lytic binding sites associated with changes in the clot’s fibrin structure. To better understand the specific effects of ultrasound on fibrin networks within blood clots, we utilized scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and clot turbidity measurements to observe and quantify changes in fibrin mesh. SEM images of Factor XIII-depleted fibrinogen clots show a significant decrease (p < 0.05) in fibrin fiber diameter in the presence of ultrasound (33.8 ± 17.2 nm) compared to control (63.4 ± 24.0 nm). Clot turbidity is reduced following treatment with ultrasound, which correlates with decreased fiber diameter. These results indicate that ultrasound alters fibrin structure, which may contribute to enhanced binding of lytic drug and clot lysis.
Acoustic droplet vaporization embedded in 3-D printed gelatin methacrylate hydrogels
Authors: Osborn Jenna , Zhang Lijie Grace , Sarkar Kausik
Published: November 2019

Gelatin Methacrylate (GelMA) is a popular hydrogel used for tissue engineering applications due to its biocompatibility, tunable mechanical properties, and rapid reproducibility. With its ability to be crosslinked with ultraviolet light exposure, GelMA can be 3-D printed into a variety of different shapes and geometries for customization for patient needs. We embedded phase-shift perfluorocarbon nanodroplets within the GelMA resin prior to 3-D printing. The droplets were then vaporized by external acoustic excitations determining the acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV) and inertial cavitation (IC) thresholds of the embedded droplets. The ADV of embedded droplets in a tissue engineering scaffolds can be used for triggered release of droplet contents. Varying the size and liquid core composition of the droplets as well as the mechanical properties of GelMA, one can change the ADV and IC characteristics of the embedded droplets. We will present the results of our experiments and discuss their implications on the potential use of this technology in tissue engineering.
Low intensity, continuous wave focused ultrasound reversibly depresses heart rate in anesthetized mice
Authors: Bendau Ethan , Aurup Christian , Kamimura Hermes , Konofagou Elisa
Published: November 2019

Focused ultrasound (FUS) can noninvasively and reversibly modulate brain activity. Observed motor activity or behavioral changes are commonly used to infer neuromodulatory effects. Changes in autonomic nervous system regulation such as heart and respiratory function can potentially be used for studying the effects of FUS neuromodulation that do not produce outwardly observable motor or behavioral activity. In this study, low pressure (850 kPa), long duration (120 s) continuous-wave (CW) FUS at 2 MHz was targeted such that the focus spanned the visual cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus. These parameters were shown to reversibly depress heart rate in in vivo mice anesthetized with sodium pentobarbital by an average of 8.1 ± 3.7%. Following stimulus offset, heart rate either increased or varied in trend. Higher pressure (2 MPa), short duration (0.3 s) pulses at the same frequency resulted in either small, transient increases in heart rate or no change. Thermocouple measurements show the peak temperature elevation in the dura to be approximately 2 °C. Thermal simulations predict a peak temperature increase in the brain of 2.3 °C. These results indicate that CW FUS can alter autonomic nervous system regulation through very low heating and show that cardiorespiratory responses can be altered as a result of FUS neuromodulation.
Acoustic excitation and detection of guided waves in a submerged aluminum plate using an angular spectrum approach
Authors: Spratt Kyle S. , Treweek Benjamin C. , Lee Kevin M. , Haberman Michael R. , Hamilton Mark F.
Published: November 2019

An angular spectrum approach can be used to obtain high-resolution measurements of the acoustic plane wave reflection and transmission coefficients corresponding to a given planar sample of material. Such an approach involves exciting the sample with a compact broadband source located in the near field and then scanning the resulting reflected or transmitted field on a plane parallel to the sample surface. Fourier transforms in both space and time then yield a description of the acoustic field in terms of its angular spectrum, or expansion into time-harmonic plane waves propagating throughout a range of frequencies and angles. To demonstrate this method, measurements made on a thick aluminum plate submerged in water are shown. In this case the reflection and transmission coefficients are intricately structured, with individual features corresponding to different symmetric and antisymmetric guided wave modes propagating within the plate. The coincidence effect, by which the plate is nearly transparent acoustically at just those frequency-angle pairs that excite guided waves, is clearly seen in the measurements. Measurements made on other materials, as well as possible extensions to this method, will also be discussed. [Research supported by ONR.]
Facial proximity detection based on inaudible noise for mobile authentication
Authors: Sinelnikov Yegor , Calvarese Russell , Hawker Larry , Sakoda William , Boyden Andrew
Published: November 2019

Enterprise-class mobile devices find widespread use in the factories, warehouses, hospitals. A complement of audio communication features enables workers to maximize their productivity and improve customer service. We demonstrate that acoustic interaction of inaudible noise delivered by a mobile device with nearby physical objects has a potential for real-time proximity detection and facial recognition. The mobile device was mounted near the head and torso simulator inside the listening room. The device receiver produced low level inaudible equalized above 15 kHz noise signal, which was recorded by one of the device’s microphone. The received signal was measured at different device orientations and distances relative to the simulator’s artificial ear. The measurements revealed good correlation between received signal power spectral density and distance to artificial ear. Positive correlation with artificial ear shape was also observed. The results have applicability in the field of mobile communication security and potential for instant biometric authentication.
Communication between native and non-native speakers
Authors: Baese-Berk Melissa M.
Published: November 2019

For decades, research in speech communication has ask how an individual perceives and produces speech. However, most prior research has used an idealized, monolingual speaker-listener as its model, which is not the norm in our globalizing world. Real-world situation of communication between native and non-native speakers can result in challenges for successful communication. However, the sources of those miscommunications are not well-understood. While many studies have directly examined how a learner acquires a second language, only in the last decade has research expanded rapidly on how a native listener might improve their ability to understand non-native speech. An understanding of the communication between native and non-native speakers is required to truly understand the processes that underlying speech communication, broadly. In this talk, I address issues of communication between native and non-native speakers in their capacities as speakers and listeners. Specifically, I describe the current state of knowledge about how non-native speakers understand and produce speech in their second (or third) language, how native speakers understand non-native speech, and how both parties can improve their abilities at these tasks. This line of inquiry has implications for both practical goals of improving communication outcomes and theoretical understanding of speech perception and production.