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Pulp suspensions possess a yield stress that varies with concentration and fibre type, and understanding of this property is important to the pulp and paper industry. Unfortunately, pulp suspensions are highly susceptible to wall slip, which greatly complicates many rheological measurements including determination of the apparent yield stress. Using the vane method as a starting point, a slip-free method for measuring the apparent yield stress of pulp suspensions is developed. The findings from this method development are also used to assess the likelihood of slip having interfered with previous pulp rheometry studies and to offer some guidelines for the design of future experiments. Finally, the apparent yield stresses of suspensions of two National Institute of Standards and Technology reference pulps are determined for concentrations between 1% and 5% w/w, and the results contrasted with previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling environmental sound levels over continental scales is difficult due to the variety of geospatial environments. Moreover, current continental-scale models depend upon machine learning and therefore face additional challenges due to limited acoustic training data. In previous work, an ensemble of machine learning models was used to predict environmental sound levels in the contiguous United States using a training set composed of 51 geospatial layers (downselected from 120) and acoustic data from 496 geographic sites from Pedersen, Transtrum, Gee, Lympany, James, and Salton [JASA Express Lett. 1(12), 122401 (2021)]. In this paper, the downselection process, which is based on factors such as data quality and inter-feature correlations, is described in further detail. To investigate additional dimensionality reduction, four different feature selection methods are applied to the 51 layers. Leave-one-out median absolute deviation cross-validation errors suggest that the number of geospatial features can be reduced to 15 without significant degradation of the model's predictive error. However, ensemble predictions demonstrate that feature selection results are sensitive to variations in details of the problem formulation and, therefore, should elicit some skepticism. These results suggest that more sophisticated dimensionality reduction techniques are necessary for problems with limited training data and different training and testing distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ogallala Aquifer, a primary irrigation water source in the High Plains region of the United States, is declining, thereby necessitating new water conservation strategies. This paper investigates the impact of mixed wettability on the evaporation dynamics of a 10-µl sessile water droplet placed within simulated soil pores comprised of hydrophobic Teflon beads (CA ∼ 108°) and hydrophilic glass (CA ∼ 41°) beads with 2.38-mm diameters, where homogeneous and heterogenous (i.e., mixed hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity) wettability configurations were investigated. Experiments were performed in an environmental chamber where the relative humidity and temperature were 60% ± 0.1% RH and 20 ± 0.4 °C, respectively. Wettability influenced evaporation times, with homogeneous hydrophobic pores (i.e., three Teflon beads) and heterogenous one glass, two Teflon pores having the longest average evaporation times of 40 and 39 min, respectively. Homogeneous hydrophilic pores (i.e., three glass beads) and heterogenous two glass, one Teflon pores exhibited evaporation times of 34 min. Evaporation times for heterogenous combinations trended based on the predominant wettability. Contact angles and the projected length of contact were analyzed from videos to capture pinning and depinning during evaporation. For many cases including hydrophobicity, contact angles were less than 90°, and in some configurations, water would be pinned on a Teflon bead, whereas depinning (i.e., moving) on a glass bead. Stick-slip evaporation was observed, where the evaporating droplet switched between constant contact radius and constant contact area evaporative modes to minimize droplet surface energy. The results suggest wettability alterations in agricultural settings may reduce evaporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Resource Letter is a supplement to the earlier Resource Letters MP-1 and MP-2, and provides further sources on the Manhattan Project and related research. Books, review papers, journal articles, videos, and websites are cited for the following topics: general works, technical works, biographical and autobiographical works, foreign wartime nuclear programs and related allied intelligence, the use of the bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, technical papers of historical interest, postwar policy and technical developments, and educational materials. Together, these three Resource Letters describe nearly 400 sources of information on the Manhattan Project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first shows experimentally that the distribution of modal spacings in a reverberation room is well modeled by the Rayleigh or Wigner distribution. Since the Rayleigh or Wigner distribution is a good approximation to the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE) distribution, this paper confirms the current wisdom that the GOE distribution is a good model for the distribution of modal spacings. Next this paper gives the technical arguments that the author used successfully to support the pragmatic arguments of Baade and the Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Institute of USA for retention of the pure tone qualification procedure and to modify a constant in the International Standard ISO 3741:1999(E) for measurement of sound power in a reverberation room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, most hearing conservation programs, including those in the military, have used permanent shifts in the pure-tone audiometric threshold as the gold standard for measuring hearing impairment in noise-exposed populations. However, recent results from animal studies suggest that high-level noise exposures can cause the permanent destruction of synapses between the inner hair cells and auditory nerve fibers, even in cases where pure-tone audiometric thresholds eventually return to their normal pre-exposure baselines. This has created a dilemma for researchers, who are now increasingly interested in studying the long-term effects that temporary hearing shifts might have on hearing function, but are also concerned about the ethical considerations of exposing human listeners to high levels of noise for research purposes. One method that remains viable to study the effects of high noise exposures on human listeners, or to evaluate the efficacy of interventions designed to prevent noise-related inner ear damage, is to identify individuals in occupations with unavoidable noise exposures and measure hearing before and as soon as possible after exposure. This paper discusses some of the important factors to be considered in studies that attempt to measure acute hearing changes in noise-exposed military populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genesis of this paper was notification to the author that he would receive the 2010 Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education, which carried the responsibility of giving a lecture at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. He decided to draw on his remembrances of writing several textbooks during a 40 year career as a professor to discuss the facets of writing that a faculty member might encounter. This paper is an expanded version of that lecture [J. H. Ginsberg, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2389 (2010)]. An opening section elucidating the author's experiences as an author is followed by a discussion intended to motivate and encourage those who are undecided about taking on this activity. Suggestions are offered as to how to organize and proceed through a writing project as well as what elements should be included. An explanation of the author's role in the process of producing a printed textbook is provided. Guidance is offered as to how one can focus on writing a book in the face of teaching, research, and personal responsibilities. The closure discusses current trends that endanger the ongoing flow of high quality textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the auditor's report for Acoustical Society of America (ASA). It says that ASA's audited financial statements as of December 31, 2010 and 2009 are in accordance with the U.S. auditing standards. It cites the annual reports of various ASA technical committees including Technical Committee on Animal Bioacoustics (TCAB), Architectural Acoustics (AA), and Technical Committee on Noise (TCNS). Meanwhile, Ana Sirovic is one of the appointed members of ASA committees.

The article discusses the highlights of the 153rd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) held in Salt Lake City, Utah on June 4-8, 2007. A total of 683 papers were presented throughout the sessions in the meeting. The tutorial on musical acoustics was given with the Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra. A Student Reception subsidized by the National Council of Acoustical Consultants allowed students to meet ASA members. A student design competition involving a drama theater complex was sponsored by the ASA Technical Committee.

Traditionally, multiple listener room equalization is performed to improve sound quality at all listeners, during audio playback, in a multiple listener environment (e.g., movie theaters, automobiles, etc.). A typical way of doing multiple listener equalization is through spatial averaging, where the room responses are averaged spatially between positions and an inverse equalization filter is found from the spatially averaged result. However, the equalization performance, will be affected if there is a mismatch between the position of the microphones (which are used for measuring the room responses for designing the equalization filter) and the actual center of listener head position (during playback). In this paper, we will present results on the effects of microphone-listener mismatch on spatial average equalization performance. The results indicate that, for the analyzed rectangular configuration, the region of effective equalization depends on (i) the distance of a listener from the source, (ii) the amount of mismatch between the responses, and (iii) the frequency of the audio signal. We also present some convergence analysis to interpret the results. 2004 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the events held by several acoustical associations in the U.S. from 2003 to 2004. Outcome of the meetings held by the Acoustical Oceanography in 2003; Sessions held by Animal Bioacoustics; Number of people who attended the Technical Committee meeting of the Techical Committee on Architectural Acoustics.

The article presents reports from the technical committees of the Acoustical Society of America for the period 2000 to 2003. The technical committees are Acoustical Oceanography, Architectural Acoustics, Animal Bioacoustics, Biomedical Ultrasound and Bioresponse to Vibration, Engineering Acoustics, Musical Acoustics, Physical Acoustics, Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, Signal Processing Acoustics and Speech Communication.

The article offers updates on several events of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). These events include the election of officers of ASA which will take place on April 9, 2010, the 159th Meeting of ASA to be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Maryland on April 19-23, 2010, and its technical program. Moreover, several photographs of the candidates for president, vice presidents, and for members of the executive council is provided.

This paper presents a quantitative and comprehensive study of the lip movements of a given speaker in different speech/nonspeech contexts, with a particular focus on silences (i.e., when no sound is produced by the speaker). The aim is to characterize the relationship between 'lip activity' and 'speech activity' and then to use visual speech information as a voice activity detector (VAD). To this aim, an original audiovisual corpus was recorded with two speakers involved in a face-to-face spontaneous dialog, although being in separate rooms. Each speaker communicated with the other using a microphone, a camera, a screen, and headphones. This system was used to capture separate audio stimuli for each speaker and to synchronously monitor the speaker's lip movements. A comprehensive analysis was carried out on the lip shapes and lip movements in either silence or nonsilence (i.e., speech+nonspeech audible events). A single visual parameter, defined to characterize the lip movements, was shown to be efficient for the detection of silence sections. This results in a visual VAD that can be used in any kind of environment noise, including intricate and highly nonstationary noises, e.g., multiple and/or moving noise sources or competing speech signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents reports from the various committees of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) with regards to the their activities for the year 2007 and 2008. The Technical Committee on Architectural Acoustical (TCAA) had a successful year, particularly during its Fall 2007 meeting and Spring 2008 meeting. Achieving good classroom acoustics continues to be an important topic that members are advocating. At its Fall 2007 Meeting, Engineering Acoustics (EA) sponsored a special session entitled "Infrasonic Instrumentation." Technical Committee on Musical Acoustics, like the other groups, was well represented at the 155th meeting in terms of special sessions. The independent auditor's report for calendar year ended December 31, 2007 is also presented.

The article presents updates on issues and topics related to acoustics in the U.S. The Acoustical Society of America's (ASA) business meeting will be held on November 29, 2007 at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. The 154th Meeting of ASA is scheduled from November 27 to December 1, 2007 at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana. A list of cumulative indexes to the "Journal of the Acoustical Society of America" is provided.

Ring doves (Streptopelia risoria) produce a coo vocalization that is essentially a pure-tone sound at a frequency of about 600 Hz and with a duration of about 1.5 s. While making this vocalization, the dove inflates the upper part of its esophagus to form a thin-walled sac structure that radiates sound to the surroundings. It is a reasonable assumption that the combined influence of the trachea, glottis and inflated upper esophagus acts as an effective band-pass filter to eliminate higher harmonics generated by the vibrating syringeal valve. Calculations reported here indicate that this is indeed the case. The tracheal tube, terminated by a glottal constriction, is the initial resonant structure, and subsequent resonant filtering takes place through the action of the inflated esophageal sac. The inflated esophagus proves to be a more efficient sound radiating mechanism than an open beak. The action of this sac is only moderately affected by the degree of inflation, although an uninflated esophagus is inactive as a sound radiator. These conclusions are supported by measurements and observations that have been reported in a companion paper. 2004 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new method for robust and accurate fundamental frequency (F0) estimation in the presence of background noise and spectral distortion. Degree of dominance and dominance spectrum are defined based on instantaneous frequencies. The degree of dominance allows one to evaluate the magnitude of individual harmonic components of the speech signals relative to background noise while reducing the influence of spectral distortion. The fundamental frequency is more accurately estimated from reliable harmonic components which are easy to select given the dominance spectra. Experiments are performed using white and babble background noise with and without spectral distortion as produced by a SRAEN filter. The results show that the present method is better than previously reported methods in terms of both gross and fine F0 errors. 2004 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to examine the role of noise sensitivity in response to environmental noise, this paper presents detailed comparisons of socio-acoustic studies conducted around international airports in Amsterdam, Sydney, and London. Earlier findings that noise sensitivity moderates the effect of noise on annoyance were examined to see if they could be replicated in each of the datasets, independent of the technique of measuring noise sensitivity. The relation between exposure to aircraft noise and noise annoyance was studied separately for groups of individuals with low, medium, and high noise sensitivity, with statistical adjustment for relevant confounders. Results support the previous findings that noise sensitivity is an independent predictor of annoyance and adds to the prediction of noise annoyance afforded by noise exposure level by up to 26% of explained variance. There is no evidence of a moderating effect, whereby the covariation between noise exposure level and annoyance is weak for people who score at the extreme high or low end of the sensitivity scale, and strong for people who score in the middle of the sensitivity scale. Generally, noise sensitivity appears to increase annoyance independently of the level of noise exposure after adjustment for relevant confounders. These findings were consistent across the three datasets. 2004 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) suppression tuning curves (STCs) typically are constructed using suppression criteria of 3 or 6 dB. This paper describes a technique for generating DPOAE STCs using criteria ranging from 3 dB to complete suppression. The criterion effect was examined at various primary levels (f2=4 kHz) in normal-hearing ears. As expected, QERB and tip-to-tail differences decreased as probe level (L2) increased. QERB values were not systematically dependent on criterion. For low L2s, tip-to-tail differences decreased as criterion increased. Given similarities in methodology, DPOAE STCs constructed from completely suppressed responses might be most appropriate for comparison to psychophysical tuning curves. 2004 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents news about acoustics in the U.S. as of August 1, 2004. The 148th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America will be held November 15 to 19, 2004 in San Diego, California. Meetings related to acoustics to be held in the U.S. include the Society of Automotive Engineering Noise and Vibration Conference from May 16-19, 2005. A list of the cumulative indexes to the journal is provided.

This Resource Letter is a supplement to my earlier Resource Letter MP-1 and provides further sources on the Manhattan Project and related nuclear research. Books and journal articles are cited for the following topics: General works, technical works, biographical and autobiographical works, foreign wartime programs and allied intelligence, technical papers of historical interest, and postwar policy and technical developments. I also give a list of videos and websites dealing with the Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, and nuclear issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges associated with the development of innovative energy efficient technology require a new generation of skilled and creative scientists and engineers. Moreover, it is vital that they possess the ability to communicate their expertise to the general public and to serve as advisors and participants in the development of science policy. This paper describes a curriculum for a course in optics that. investigates the physical principles and policy aspects of solid state lighting. Recent legislation places stringent efficiency and reliability requirements on lighting, promoting the development of new commercial lighting options. The physics of solid state lighting fits naturally into the undergraduate optics curriculum, and the policy aspects provide students with an engaging connection between science and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A time evolution analysis is presented for the interaction between the instability waves, shock cells, and screech tones based on the authors’ previous numerical simulation database. An attachment and reinforcement process of the upstream propagating screech waves with the downstream hydrodynamic waves is identified and recognized as part of the screech loop. The first five shock cells are recognized as the effective sound source region. Through an analysis of the phase variation in the dominant pressure fluctuations for several typical Mach number screeching jets, it is found that the total number of the instability waves and the upstream feedback sound waves in the effective source region can be identified as 5 for the A1, B, and D modes and 6 for A2 and C modes, respectively. A screech tone frequency prediction formula is thus proposed based on this relation. The predicted screech wavelengths or Strouhal numbers of cold and hot jets all agree well with the experimental data by other researchers, except for a small discrepancy for the B mode. It is also noticed that the measured two A0 modes by Ponton et al. [NASA Technical Memorandum No. 113137, Langley Research Center (1997)] can be classified to A1 and A2 modes, respectively, according to the proposed formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the award given to associate chief of staff and director of the U.S. Veteran Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research Stephen A. Fausti in 2004 for his efforts in work in rehabilitative research and development. Origin of the award; History of the National Center; Value of the cash prize given to the awardees.

We revisit a series of papers on science and society issues by David Hafemeister in the 1970s and 1980s. The emphasis in the present work is on world oil production limits and some consequences of various possible scenarios for the near future. Some of the data and scenarios used by Hafemeister are updated for U.S. oil production in the past two decades, and extended to an analysis of a peak in world oil production in the future. We discuss some simple scenarios for future energy use patterns and look at the consequence of these scenarios as world oil production begins to decline. We also provide a list of resources for critical investigations of natural resource extraction and depletion patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents updates related to the Acoustical Society of America. It offers information on the new fellows of the society including Michael R. Bailey, Stephen J. Elliott and Hedwig Gockel. It lists the reviewers of the manuscripts for the 2006 issue of the "Journal of the Acoustical Society of America." It presents a summary of meetings related to acoustics that will be held in the U.S.

Absolute pitch is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe; this rarity has so far been unexplained. This paper reports a substantial difference in the prevalence of absolute pitch in two normal populations, in a large-scale study employing an on-site test, without self-selection from within the target populations. Music conservatory students in the U.S. and China were tested. The Chinese subjects spoke the tone language Mandarin, in which pitch is involved in conveying the meaning of words. The American subjects were nontone language speakers. The earlier the age of onset of musical training, the greater the prevalence of absolute pitch; however, its prevalence was far greater among the Chinese than the U.S. students for each level of age of onset of musical training. The findings suggest that the potential for acquiring absolute pitch may be universal, and may be realized by enabling infants to associate pitches with verbal labels during the critical period for acquisition of features of their native language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical background for the interpretation of the time reversal (TR) processes applied to the refocalization of acoustic waves in dispersive media with multimode propagation of waves. Two parameters are introduced in order to measure the efficiency of signal recompression in TR processes: spatial and temporal efficiencies. It is demonstrated that the signal recompression enhances when the medium is highly dispersive, when there are several modes involved in the process, and when the angular aperture of the TR mirror is appreciable. These results are applied to Lamb waves recompression in thin plates and focalization efficiencies in longitudinal and transversal directions are deduced. Finally, these theoretical results are compared with the experimental ones obtained for different plate thicknesses. 2005 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the propagation of a broadband sound pulse in three-dimensional (3D) shallow water waveguides is investigated numerically. Two cases are examined: (i) the 3D ASA benchmark wedge, and (ii) the 3D Gaussian canyon. The numerical method used to solve the four-dimensional acoustic problem is based on a Fourier synthesis technique. The frequency-domain calculations are carried out using the fully 3D parabolic equation based model 3DWAPE, recently modified to include a wide-angle paraxial approximation for the azimuthal component. A broadband sound pulse with a central frequency of 25 Hz and a bandwith of 40 Hz is considered. For both test cases, 3D results corresponding to a 25 Hz cw point source are first presented and compared with predictions from a 3D adiabatic modal model. Then, the acoustic problem is solved considering the broadband source pulse. The modal structure of the received signals is analyzed and exhibits multiple mode arrivals of the propagating signal. 2005 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of using computer simulations in teaching science to students in the United States. Differences in the performance of students using simulation and students using paper and pencil; Problems associated with students relying on the computer for answers; Details and method of implementation of the program.

Exposure to noise—or unwanted sound—is considered a major public health issue in the United States and internationally. Previous work has shown that even acute noise exposure can influence physiological response in humans and that individuals differ markedly in their susceptibility to noise. Recent research also suggests that specific acoustic properties of noise may have distinct effects on human physiological response. Much of the existing research on physiological response to noise consists of laboratory studies using very simple acoustic stimuli—like white noise or tone bursts—or field studies of longer-term workplace noise exposure that may neglect acoustic properties of the noise entirely. By using laboratory exposure to realistic heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) noise, the current study explores the interaction between acoustic properties of annoying noise and individual response to working in occupational noise. This study assessed autonomic response to two acoustically distinct noises while participants performed cognitively demanding work. Results showed that the two HVAC noises affected physiological arousal in different ways. Individual differences in physiological response to noise as a function of noise sensitivity were also observed. Further research is necessary to link specific acoustic characteristics with differential physiological responses in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on various developments related to the Acoustical Society of America in the U.S. Douglas S. Brungart has been made a new fellow of the society. Todd A. Hay, a member of the society, has been awarded the 2008-09 F.V. Hunt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Acoustics. Hay has undertaken a research program at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The subject of his research is on the examination of bubble interaction dynamics in therapeutic ultrasound. The Hunt Fellowship is granted every year to a member of the society who has recently received his or her doctorate or will receive it in the year in which the fellowship is to be granted.

This section presents news briefs on the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Charles W. Holland and Marehalli G. Prasad were named fellows of the ASA. Meanwhile, the 153rd Meeting of the ASA will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah from June 4 to 8, 2007. Moreover, cumulative indexes to the journal of the ASA include Volumes 1 to 10, 1929 to 1938.

The article offers acoustical news briefs from United States of America. The photographs of the fellows of the Acoustical Society of America including Sergio Beristain, David R. Palmer, Mark V. Trevorrow and Michael Vorlander are published. A report on the 27th F. V. Hunt Postdoctoral Fellow (2005 - 2006) was published. A calendar of meetings related to acoustics to be held in United States in the near future is also presented.

The geologic profile of the western United States lends itself to naturally elevated levels of arsenic and uranium in the groundwater and can be aggravated by mining. The Navajo Nation, located in the American Southwest, is the largest contiguous Native American Nation and has over a 100-year legacy of hard rock mining. Concentrations of uranium and arsenic above drinking water standards in unregulated water sources pose various human-health risks to the Navajo Nation due to the lack of public water infrastructure that exists. Although high natural background concentrations may occur in some environments, anthropogenic contamination concerns are especially troublesome for the Navajo Nation, where past uranium mining activity and natural sources affect unregulated water supplies. Community engaged research on uranium and arsenic present in unregulated water wells in the western portion of the Navajo Nation has been a focus of the Ingram laboratory since 2003. These studies have provided important information, particularly for uranium and arsenic, to the communities and the Navajo tribal leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Southern United States have long been known for language diversity, yet linguistic research in this region has often focused on broad descriptions of characteristics of Southern American English as compared to other regional dialects of American English. Linguistic subregions in the South, however, are distinctly different from each other, and additional social variation also occurs within those subregions. Thus, the different English varieties spoken in the South cannot be collapsed under a single umbrella. Analyzing varieties of English in the Southern United States calls for a narrower approach, which will more accurately represent diverse Southern communities, their languages of practice, and the sound changes in process. Sociophonetic research on variation within English varieties in the Southern United States highlights theoretical and practical areas in speech acoustics that would otherwise remain under-documented and under-investigated, such as socially meaningful variation in vowel trajectories, nasalance of vowels, and temporal characteristics. The goal of this special issue is to bring together research that investigates the production and perception of Southern varieties of American English by documenting the segmental and prosodic patterns unique to these subregional varieties and by determining how these features are perceived by both Southerners and non-Southerners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to hazardous noise is one of the most common occupational risks, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Repeated overexposure to noise at or above 85 dBA can cause permanent hearing loss, tinnitus, and difficulty understanding speech in noise. It is also associated with cardiovascular disease, depression, balance problems, and lower income. About 22 million U.S. workers are currently exposed to hazardous occupational noise. Approximately 33% of working-age adults with a history of occupational noise exposure have audiometric evidence of noise-induced hearing damage, and 16% of noise-exposed workers have material hearing impairment. While the Mining, Construction, and Manufacturing sectors typically have the highest prevalence of noise exposure and hearing loss, there are noise-exposed workers in every sector and every sector has workers with hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss is preventable. Increased understanding of the biological processes underlying noise damage may lead to protective pharmacologic or genetic therapies. For now, an integrated public health approach that (1) emphasizes noise control over reliance on hearing protection, (2) illustrates the full impact of hearing loss on quality of life, and (3) challenges the cultural acceptance of loud noise can substantially reduce the impact of noise on worker health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first part in the nitrate solubility volume. The solubility data for lithium nitrate are reviewed. Where appropriate, binary, ternary, and multicomponent systems are critically evaluated. Most of the solubility results were obtained in water or aqueous solutions. The solubility in ethanol and in alcohol+watersolvent mixtures is also included. All data were critically examined for their reliability. The best values were selected on the basis of critical evaluations and presented in tabular form. Fitting equations and plots are also provided. The quantities, units, and symbols used are in accord with IUPAC recommendations. The original data have been reported and, if necessary, transferred into the units and symbols recommended by IUPAC. The literature on solubility data was researched through 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces several fellows of the Acoustical Society of America in 2008, including Bryan E. Pfingst, Arman Sarvazyan and Ann K. Syrdal.

The article announces new fellows of the Acoustical Society of America including Dani Byrd, Brian R. Glasberg, and Brad H. Story.

The article presents the annual report of the Technical Committee on Musical Acoustics (TCMU) of the Acoustical Society of America during the 2006-2007 period. TCMU has delivered several sessions at the joint meeting with the Acoustical Society of Japan in November-December 2006, including a session on acoustical correlates of timbre in music and musical instruments. TCMU also presented sessions at the Salt Lake City meeting of ASA in Utah in June 2007 such as a session on yodeling as a style of vocal production.

With results from a nationwide survey sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, factors that affect outdoor audibility and noise annoyance of wind turbines were evaluated. Wind turbine and summer daytime median background sound levels were estimated for 1043 respondents. Wind turbine sound level was the most robust predictor of audibility yet only a weak, albeit significant, predictor of noise annoyance. For each 1 dB increase in wind turbine sound level (L1h-max), the odds of hearing a wind turbine on one's property increased by 31% [odds ratio (OR): 1.31; 95% CI (confidence interval): 1.25–1.38] and the odds of moving to the next level of annoyance increased by 9% (OR: 1.09; 95% CI: 1.02–1.16). While audibility was overwhelmingly dependent on turbine sound level, noise annoyance was best explained by visual disapproval (OR: 11.0; 95% CI: 4.8–25.4). The final models correctly predict audibility and annoyance level for 80% and 62% of individuals, respectively. The results demonstrate that among community members not receiving personal benefits from wind projects, the Community Tolerance Level of wind turbine noise for the U.S. aligns with the international average, further supporting observations that communities are less tolerant of wind turbine noise than other common environmental noise sources at equivalent A-weighted sound levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly metastatic prostate cancer cells flowing through a microfluidic channel form plasma membrane blebs: they form 27% more than normal cells and have a lower stiffness (about 50%). Hypo-osmotic stress assays (with ∼ 50 % osmolarity) show 22% more blebbing of highly metastatic than moderately metastatic and 30% more than normal cells. Plasma membrane blebbing is known to provide important metastatic capabilities to cancer cells by aiding cell detachment from the primary tumor site and increasing cell deformability to promote cell migration through the extracellular matrix. Increased blebbing was attributed by others to decreased phosphorylated ezrin, radixin, and moesin (ERM) (p-ERM) protein expression—p-ERMs bind the plasma membrane to the actin cortex and reduced p-ERM expression can weaken membrane-cortex attachment. Myosin II also influences blebbing as myosin's natural contraction generates tension in the actin cortex. This increases cellular hydrostatic pressure, causes cortex rupture, cytoplasm flow out of the cortex, and hence blebbing. Highly metastatic cells are surprisingly found to express similar ezrin and myosin II levels but higher moesin levels in comparison with lowly metastatic or normal cells—suggesting that their levels, contrary to the literature [G. Charras and E. Paluch, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 9(9), 730–736 (2008); J.-Y. Tinevez, U. Schulze, G. Salbreux, J. Roensch, J.-F. Joanny, and E. Paluch, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106(44), 18581–18586 (2009); M. Bergert, S. D. Chandradoss, R. A. Desai, and E. Paluch, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109(36), 14434–14439 (2012); E. K. Paluch and E. Raz: Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 25(5), 582–590 (2013)], are not important in metastatic prostate cell blebbing. Our results show that reduced F-actin is primarily responsible for increased blebbing in these metastatic cells. Blebbing can thus serve as a simple prognostic marker for the highly incident and lethal metastatic prostate cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of these acoustical patent reviews is to provide enough information for a Journal reader to decide whether to seek more information from the patent itself. Any opinions expressed here are those of the reviewers as individuals and are not legal opinions. Printed copies of United States Patents may be ordered at $3.00 each from the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, Washington, DC 20231. Patents are available via the Internet at http://www.uspto.gov. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the 2017 American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Award winners which include Kenneth Heller who won the Robert A. Millikan Medal, John C. Brown who won the Klopsteg Memorial Lecture Award and Cindy Schwarz who won the 2017 David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching.