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The Reflections series takes a look back on historical articles from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that have had a significant impact on the science and practice of acoustics.

A substantial fraction of the membership of the Acoustical Society of America are faculty at various types of educational institutions and are actively engaged in educational activities. However, papers focusing on aspects of teaching, pedagogy, demonstrations, student learning, and other education topics are not often published in JASA, even though the Education in Acoustics Committee regularly offers special sessions on these topics at every ASA meeting. This special issue of JASA dedicated to Education in Acoustics includes 41 papers from authors all over the world. This introduction to the special issue briefly describes each of the papers, which have been organized into several broad categories: teaching methods and exercises; project-based learning; use of experiments, demos, and experiential learning; adapting to teaching during COVID-19; circuit models and impedance concepts; software apps and online resources; teaching musical acoustics; and descriptions of acoustics programs at a variety of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many paper handling machines, the sound radiated from impacts on paper is a major noise source. It is shown that in typical impact line printers both nonresonant and resonant paper vibration are significant mechanisms of sound generation. Both can probably be controlled by increasing the backing bar stiffness of the printer while keeping the printing force constant. The paper-hammer impact on the backing bar dominates paper impact noise below 1250 Hz. Above 2500 Hz the hammer impact on the paper is the dominant source. From 1250-2500 Hz the two impacts contribute equally to the sound generation. Finally, consideration of the design of a ''quiet'' paper leads to the suggestion of a paper with high density and low bending rigidity. This might be accomplished through microcreping of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prescoring based upon the material contained in abstracts was used to allocate presentation times for the papers in Speech Communication submitted for presentation at the 80th Meeting of the Acoustical Society. After the papers were actually presented, their technical content, presentation quality, and discussion quality were judged. No casual relationships could be established between the prescoring and postjudging of the paper, although the papers allocated 15 min were judged statistically better in technical content than the papers allocated 5 or 10 min. It is hoped that this letter might entice others to conduct further experimentation and subjective assessment of different methods for improving professional meetings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sonoluminescence is the production of electromagnetic radiation, much of it in the form of visible light, that is emitted from a gas-filled cavity that has grown and collapsed under the influence of a varying pressure field. This resource paper provides a guide to the literature of sonoluminescence, from its early history to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments with laser generation and detection of ultrasound in copy paper indicate that earliest arrivals of ultrasound are antisymmetric. A likely explanation is that the out-of-plane interferometer is relatively insensitive to the symmetric compressional pulse because of the low Poisson ratio of copy paper, but rather sensitive to its antisymmetric flexural wake associated with the random heterogeneities and gradients present in copy paper. © 1997 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A through-transmission, dry-contact ultrasonic technique aimed at investigating sound propagation in the thickness direction of paper materials is presented. The method uses piezoelectric ceramic transducers immersed in fluid-filled rubber wheels. Thickness and longitudinal velocity are determined from time domain measurements for several commercial paper specimens between 40 and 1750 μm. Dispersion and attenuation are reported at frequencies up to 1.5 MHz. Dispersion is less than 10% between 0.25 and 1.25 MHz. Amplitude calculations are used to evaluate the attenuation coefficient versus the frequency. Using a nearly local form of the Kramers-Kronig relationships, the attenuation coefficient is also obtained from the phase information. By comparing the amplitude- and phase-determined attenuation coefficients, an apparent reflection coefficient is predicted. It is shown that the Kramers-Kronig relationships can be applied to papers thicker than 200 μm under dry coupling conditions. The attenuation coefficient is inversely related to the elastic stiffness for homogeneous specimens. A linear relationship is observed between the attenuation loss and the thickness. The apparent reflection coefficient correlates to the apparent surface roughness of paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The A0 Lamb mode in copy paper is generated and detected by using laser ultrasonics. The frequency dependence of the group velocity of the A0 mode is found from the wavelet transform of the measured signal. A best fit of the dispersion curve against predictions based on orthotropic plate theory yields an estimate of the bending stiffness of the sample. The sample is enclosed in an environmental chamber so that the effects of temperature and humidity can be controlled. Results indicate that the bending stiffness decreases with increasing temperature at an approximate rate of 4×10-6 N m/°C, and that it decreases with increasing percent moisture content (PMC) at an approximate rate of 2×10-5 (N m)/PMC. © 2002 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notebooks of Wallace Clement Sabine were discovered in 1975, and his consulting files were discovered in 1979. Both findings were reported [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 61, 629-639 (1977); J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 69, 1-7 (1981)]. By chance, his personal papers were discovered recently and highlights from them are presented here with emphasis on his European activities from 1906 to 1917.

Echolocation (i.e., perceiving objects using acoustic echoes) is well-known in underwater detection and to a lesser extent in robot guidance and machine perception. The paper by Tsakiris and McKerrow is concerned with machine perception in air using Freedman's asymptotic model, which was originally developed to predict the backscattering multiple-echo effect observed in sonar detection. This effect was subsequently shown to be due to the elastic response of underwater targets. Freedman's model can be used in air because the acoustic target is assumed to be rigid. Also, the model's prediction of multiple echoes can be used to obtain information about the shape of the target. This is the so-called inversion of the Freedman model by Tsakiris and McKerrow. In their paper, various simple bodies are tested in air using ultrasound and it is shown that the model provides relatively poor information about body shape. Several explanations are given. However, one explanation is not considered, namely that the model itself is not satisfactory. First, there is poor agreement with exact backscattering theory. Second, deriving information about target shape from the multiple echoes predicted by the model is a highly questionable procedure. Both these aspects are examined here.

It has been previously determined that precompressed onionskin paper may be used as an acoustic decoupler. In our evaluation, compressional-wave measurements were made on various types of paper, and in particular onionskin typing paper, at 32 and 1000 kHz. At the lower frequency, a composite material technique was used to allow pressurization of the samples. The velocity of sound and attenuation were found to vary nonlinearly with pressure over the range from 0 to 2000 psi. This nonlinearity introduces a nonlinear acoustic loading of the transducer elements and is the main disadvantage of onionskin paper. However, it was confirmed that the onionskin paper should be more stable with pressure than the other papers, provided that it has been properly precompressed. Most of the insertion loss provided by onionskin paper is caused by the mismatch in acoustic impedance. Thus, a fairly wide variety of materials should provide equivalent acoustical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present editorial, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal explains the processes by which manuscripts are handled when they are submitted for publication. Various categories of problem papers are described, and it is emphasized that the outcome of the review process is not always predictable. Metrics for measuring paper quality and journal quality are reviewed and discussed. Arguments are given to the effect that the quality of a paper and its chances of being selected for publication will be considerably improved if the authors adopt a philosophy of literate writing and collegial citing. The detailed meaning of these phrases is discussed with accompanying examples, including the case of a paper by J. J. Waterston, the publication of which was delayed for 47 years until the paper was rediscovered by Rayleigh. © 2000 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of anthropogenic (man-made) underwater sound on aquatic life have become an important environmental issue. One of the focal ways to present and to share knowledge on the topic has been the international conference on The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life ("Aquatic Noise"). The conferences have brought together people from diverse interests and backgrounds to share information and ideas directed at understanding and solving the challenges of the potential effects of sound on aquatic life. The papers published here and in a related special issue of Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics present a good overview of the many topics and ideas covered at the meeting. Indeed, the growth in studies on anthropogenic sound since the first meeting in 2007 reflects the increasing use of oceans, lakes, rivers, and other waterways by humans. However, there are still very substantial knowledge gaps about the effects of sound on all aquatic animals, and these gaps lead to there being a substantial need for a better understanding of the sounds produced by various sources and how these sounds may affect animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue provide a critical look at some historical ideas that have had an influence on research and teaching in the field of speech communication. They also address widely used methodologies or address long-standing methodological challenges in the areas of speech perception and speech production. The goal is to reconsider and evaluate the need for caution or replacement of historical ideas with more modern results and methods. The contributions provide respectful historical context to the classic ideas, as well as new original research or discussion that clarifies the limitations of the original ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the Special Issue of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America on Ocean Acoustics in the Changing Arctic. The special issue includes papers on ocean (and in one case atmospheric) acoustics. Changes in both the ice cover and ocean stratification have significant implications for acoustic propagation and ambient sound. The Arctic is not done changing, and papers in this special issue, therefore, represent a snapshot of current acoustic conditions in the Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acoustic decoupling behavior of onionskin paper is examined, with emphasis on sonar transducer applications. Nonlinear changes in the sound velocity of onionskin paper with pressure are used to predict the degradation of both frequency and directional response. These results are obtained by computer analysis of a longitudinal-vibrator equivalent circuit. The results are in reasonable agreement with the measured characteristics of a specific transducer configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reply to views on aircraft noise in the community and in the passenger cabin of modern jet aircraft presented in three papers at the 86th Meeting of the Acoustical Society in Los Angeles, Nov. 1973 (Papers MM1, MM3, and MM11). It is argued that procedures used by the author of paper MM-1 can result in EPNL values subject to errors of as much as 8 to 15 EPN dB. Recent measurements by Boeing are quoted that are substantially in agreement with those officially determined in 1971 for 727 aircraft on take-off. It is anticipated that landing noise will show similar agreement with published data. Other Boeing measurements using an aircraft in which engine noise was essentially eliminated indicate that it is technologically impossible to achieve the low community noise levels suggested in MM3 at the present time with a viable commerical airplane. Measurements together with widely accepted hearing conservation criteria indicate that travellers are not being exposed to hazardous noise levels inside passenger cabins of modern jets as claimed in paper MM11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new method of measuring Young's modulus in a paper cone is presented. The characteristics of this method are as follows. (1) The distribution of Young's modulus along generatrix of the cone can be measured. (2) The technology of laser modulation is applied in this method. As a consequence, the setup of measurement has no influence on the vibration behavior. This new method has been tested and verified. © 1996 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following group of papers resulted from a special session entitled Speech Recognition and Perception from an Articulatory Point of View that was held during the spring 1994 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Organization of the session began when Richard McGowan, Terry Nearey, and Juergen Schroeter invited speakers to give papers and critiques on the role of articulation in human perception and machine recognition. Presentations were invited from three speakers or groups of speakers who were representative of the three speech areas in the Society: production, perception, and processing. One talk was given by Björn Lindblom, another was given by John Ohala, and the third by Rick Rose, Juergen Schroeter, Mohan Sondhi, and Oded Ghitza. The invited critiquers for the Lindblom paper were Ken Stevens, Robert Remez, and Bishnu Atal; for the Rose et al. paper, Roger Moore, Joe Perkell, and Terry Nearey; and for the Ohala paper, Mary Beckman, Douglas O'Shaughnessy, and Carol Fowler. These people created a very interesting and provocative session. Robert Fox, associate editor of the speech perception section of the Journal, initiated publication of and edited the papers that appear here. Written versions of the invited papers are included here, as well as the critiques by Stevens, Remez, Nearey, Moore, and O'Shaughnessy. Because it was felt that Carol Fowler's view of the importance of articulation in speech perception was not sufficiently aired in a short critique, she was asked to present her views in a longer paper. © 1996 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses experimental validations of multilayer microslit panels (MSPs) designed via Bayesian inference to obtain both high sound absorption and wide bandwidth simultaneously. Microslit perforation in thin panels is similar to microperforated panels [Xiang, Fackler, Hou, and Schmitt (2022). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 151(5), 3094–3103]. MSP absorbers in single-layer configurations are functioning in a limited frequency range. By stacking the MSPs in multiple layered structures, absorbing performance may be widened in frequency ranges while retaining high absorption coefficients. Besides design challenges of multiple MSPs in layered structures to fulfill a practical requirement and minimize fabrication complexity, this paper further discusses challenges in experimental validations when experimental results undesirably deviate from the initial Bayesian design. Causation analysis is applied to the validation efforts where a causal model-based inference effectively provides causal reasoning of fabrication inaccuracies. Along with the causal inference, a causal reasoning conducted in this work can guide corrections due to fabrication inaccuracies during the iterative validation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I have been studying fish hearing since 1966. Over that time, my interests have evolved from basic mechanisms of hearing to "translational fish bioacoustics" where I help apply basic science to the protection of fishes from potential harm arising from anthropogenic sources. Yet, I am still most interested in basic science questions. Thus, this paper focuses on basic questions on fish hearing and shares my personal view of some of the interesting and important questions I think need to be asked about fish hearing by future investigators. Accordingly, I am not focusing on what has been learned, but, rather, I focus on the questions raised by what we have learned. Moreover, my focus is comparative—there are more than 34 000 extant fish species—and we know little about hearing in any one species. Indeed, most of our knowledge comes from about 100 species! Therefore, considering the immense importance of fishes, it is my contention that we need to know a great deal more about the sense that gives fishes rapid and highly directional information, often at a great distance, about the world around them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B-mode ultrasound has emerged as a prevalent tool for observing tongue motion in speech production, gaining traction in speech therapy applications. However, the effective analysis of ultrasound tongue image frame sequences (UTIFs) encounters many challenges, such as the presence of high levels of speckle noise and obscured views. Recently, the application of machine learning, especially deep learning techniques, to UTIF interpretation has shown promise in overcoming these hurdles. This paper presents a thorough examination of the existing literature, focusing on UTIF analysis. The scope of our work encompasses four key areas: a foundational introduction to deep learning principles, an exploration of motion tracking methodologies, a discussion of feature extraction techniques, and an examination of cross-modality mapping. The paper concludes with a detailed discussion of insights gleaned from the comprehensive literature review, outlining potential trends and challenges that lie ahead in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on analysing acoustic structures containing locally reacting resonators, aiming to establish a framework for discussing sound properties related to scattering and transmission in a periodic resonator array. The paper introduces an analytical model for the input surface impedance of non-uniform resonator arrays, which is a challenging task when addressing sound propagation to the opposite side of the array. To address this challenge, a mode-matching method is employed within a one-dimensional periodic structure combined with the decomposition of the initial mirror-symmetric system into symmetric and antisymmetric sub-systems. This procedure leads to simplified analytical solutions of transmission problems about non-uniform resonator arrays, and its accuracy is verified through numerical simulations. The proposed method provides insights into mode shapes and amplitudes, thereby complementing numerical simulations and enabling a comprehensive understanding of sound fields beyond conventional results such as pressure fields and sound absorption coefficients alone. The model of a periodic varying-height resonator array presented herein involves developing mathematical equations or simulations to capture the physical characteristics and interactions of the resonators. This approach empowers researchers to predict and comprehend the non-uniform array's transmission behaviour and performance characteristics, with diverse applications spanning various systems, including electromagnetic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a ranking and selection approach to psychoacoustic and psychophysical experimentation, with the aim of identifying top-ranking samples in listening experiments with minimal pairwise comparisons. We draw inspiration from sports tournament designs and propose to adopt modified knockout (KO) tournaments. Two variants of modified KO tournaments are described, which adapt the tree selection sorting algorithm and the replacement selection algorithm known from computer science. To validate the proposed method, a listening experiment is conducted, where binaural renderings of seven chamber music halls are compared regarding loudness and reverberance. The rankings obtained by the modified KO tournament method are compared to those obtained from a traditional round-robin (RR) design, where all possible pairs are compared. Moreover, the paper presents simulations to illustrate the method's robustness when choosing different parameters and assuming different underlying data distributions. The study's findings demonstrate that modified KO tournaments are more efficient than full RR designs in terms of the number of comparisons required for identifying the top ranking samples. Thus, they provide a promising alternative for this task. We offer an open-source implementation so that researchers can easily integrate KO designs into their studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air-conducted (AC) microphones capture the high-quality desired speech and ambient noise, whereas bone-conducted (BC) microphones are immune to ambient noise but only capture band limited speech. This paper proposes a speech enhancement model that leverages the merits of BC and AC speech. The proposed model takes the spectrogram of BC and AC speech as input and fuses them by an attention-based feature fusion module. The backbone network of the proposed model uses the fused signals to estimate mask of the target speech, which is then applied to the noisy AC speech to recover the target speech. The proposed model adopts a lightweight design of densely gated convolutional attention network (DenGCAN) as the backbone network, which contains encoder, bottleneck layers, and decoder. Furthermore, this paper improves an attention gate and integrates it into skip-connections of DenGCAN, which allows the decoder to focus on the key areas of the feature map extracted by the encoder. As the DenGCAN adopts self-attention mechanism, the proposed model has the potential to improve noise reduction performance at the expense of an increased input-output latency. Experimental results demonstrate that the enhanced speech of the proposed model achieves an average 1.870 wideband-PESQ improvement over the noisy AC speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonreciprocal acoustic devices have been shown to be able to control incident waves propagating in one direction whilst allowing incident waves propagating in the opposite direction to be transmitted without modification. Nonreciprocal sound transmission, typically, has been achieved by introducing nonlinearities or directional biasing through fluid motion or spatiotemporal modulation of resonant cavities. However, the spatial arrangement of these approaches creates preferential characteristics in one direction such that the direction of the nonreciprocal behaviour is fixed and, thus, they are not straightforwardly reconfigurable. To address this issue, it has previously been revealed that feedforward wave-based active controllers can be employed to drive a single subwavelength active unit cell to achieve broadband nonreciprocal sound transmission or absorption in a one-dimensional linear acoustic system. Extending this concept, this paper investigates how the feedforward wave-based active controller can be used to drive an array of subwavelength active unit cells forming a metasurface to achieve broadband nonreciprocal sound absorption over a two-dimensional plane. Through simulation and experimental studies, this paper shows that active wave-based absorption control systems can achieve broadband nonreciprocal sound absorption when the incident waves are generated by normally and obliquely positioned primary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paper by the current authors Paul and Nelson [JASA Express Lett. 3(9), 094802 (2023)] showed how the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the matrix of real weights in a neural network could be used to prune the network during training. The paper presented here shows that a similar approach can be used to reduce the training time and increase the implementation efficiency of complex-valued neural networks. Such networks have potential advantages compared to their real-valued counterparts, especially when the complex representation of the data is important, which is the often case in acoustic signal processing. In comparing the performance of networks having both real and complex elements, it is demonstrated that there are some advantages to the use of complex networks in the cases considered. The paper includes a derivation of the backpropagation algorithm, in matrix form, for training a complex-valued multilayer perceptron with an arbitrary number of layers. The matrix-based analysis enables the application of the SVD to the complex weight matrices in the network. The SVD-based pruning technique is applied to the problem of the classification of transient acoustic signals. It is shown how training times can be reduced, and implementation efficiency increased, while ensuring that such signals can be classified with remarkable accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the patent application 7,445,173 related to a device for reducing vibration as well as noise of a paper shredder assigned to Michilin Prosperity Co. Ltd. In order to reduce vibration and noise, a paper shredder core assembly is attached to a housing base using buffer devices. The paper shredder core assembly is composed of frames, cutting assembly, gear set and motor.

The recent paper by Hueter et al. on ultrasonic lesions in the central nervous system, which appeared in a recent issue of this Journal (March, 1956), presents a rather limited view of this field and may lead to some misunderstandings. This note is a critical analysis of the Hueter paper. Some of the more important points discussed are: (1) The unique advantages of producing ultrasonic lesions in the brain by using dosages appropriate for selective action combined with focusing of the beam in contrast to the use of focusing alone. (2) The choice of an irradiation procedure in experiments designed for the elucidation of physical mechanisms of the action of ultrasound on tissue. (3) The specification of the acoustic variables required for a dosage description. (4) The inapplicability of Eyring's theory of viscosity, plasticity, and diffusion to the elucidation of observed dosage relations. (5) The clarification of the usage of the terminology, nontemperature effects. (6) The applicability of the reciprocity method for the calibration of thermo-couple probes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critiques by A. Cohen, H. Davis, B. L. Lempert, and W. D. Ward of my paper 'Impairment to Hearing from Exposure to Noise' are treated individually. Questions raised by the reviewers are discussed and areas for further discussion are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests an explanation for listeners' greater tolerance to positive than negative mistuning of the higher tone within an octave pair. It hypothesizes a neural circuit tuned to cancel the lower tone that also cancels the higher tone if that tone is in tune. Imperfect cancellation is the cue to mistuning of the octave. The circuit involves two neural pathways, one delayed with respect to the other, that feed a coincidence-sensitive neuron via excitatory and inhibitory synapses. A mismatch between the time constants of these two synapses results in an asymmetry in sensitivity to mismatch. Specifically, if the time constant of the delayed pathway is greater than that of the direct pathway, there is a greater tolerance to positive mistuning than to negative mistuning. The model is directly applicable to the harmonic octave (concurrent tones) but extending it to the melodic octave (successive tones) requires additional assumptions that are discussed. The paper reviews evidence from auditory psychophysics and physiology in favor—or against—this explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the original paper [Yasui and Izu, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141(6), 4398–4407 (2017)], the temperature gradient in Rott equations was assumed as zero by mistake as an author error, although temperature gradient was adequately taken into account in the numerical simulations of thermal conduction between a fluid parcel and the wall of a stack. In the present erratum, the results of the corrected numerical simulations are shown. The results show that the pV work done by a fluid parcel is larger in a wet stack compared to that in a dry stack not only in a traveling-wave thermoacoustic engine but also in a standing-wave thermoacoustic engine. The pV work is determined not only by the volume oscillation amplitude of a fluid parcel but also by the change in the mean volume of a fluid parcel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]