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Featured Application: The current study will be of interest to designers of professional audio software and hardware devices as it will allow them to design their tools to increase or diminish the sonic character discussed in the paper. In addition, it will benefit professional audio engineers due to its potential to speed up their workflow. In popular music productions, the lead vocal is often the main focus of the mix and engineers will work to impart creative colouration onto this source. This paper conducts listening experiments to test if there is a correlation between perceived distortion and the descriptor "aggressive", which is often used to describe the sonic signature of Universal Audio 1176, a much-used dynamic range compressor in professional music production. The results from this study show compression settings that impart audible distortion are perceived as aggressive by the listener, and there is a strong correlation between the subjective listener scores for distorted and aggressive. Additionally, it was shown there is a strong correlation between compression settings rated with high aggressive scores and the audio feature roughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at investigating the use of polyurethane mats, usually used as ballast mats, for residential building purposes. Ballast mats have features that may improve the vibroacoustic comfort in residential rooms. Their strength is certainly an advantage, along with vibration and acoustic insulation. However, the problem that an engineer has to deal with, for example in modeling these types of mats, is a limited knowledge of the material's vibroacoustic parameters. Knowledge of these may be useful for residential buildings. This paper presents measurements of the vibroacoustic parameters of polyurethane mats, together with a suitable methodology and some results and analysis. The two main material parameters responsible for vibroacoustic protection were measured: the dynamic stiffness, which is related to the acoustic properties of the material, and the critical damping coefficient, which is obviously responsible for damping. The measurement methodology is clearly described. A total of five polyurethane materials with different densities were tested. It was possible to identify a relationship between the material density and the vibroacoustic parameters, which could offer an indication of which material to use, depending on the stimulus affecting a human in a given location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract  A novel method for the preparation of biaxial textured nickel oxide on commercially available nickel via a modified surface oxidation epitaxy (SOE) process has been developed. Following studies of different heat-treatment procedures for both texturing of nickel and for the fabrication of nickel oxide the following method was found to yield the best results. Nickel was first textured under an argon — hydrogen atmosphere at 1000°C for 120 min, then the temperature was lowered to 800°C and the atmosphere was changed to argon with 3 ppm oxygen. Smooth and crack free c-axis textured and a–b aligned NiO buffer layers with an out-of-plane texture of 7.8° and an in-plane texture of 9.4° were successfully produced. Higher oxygen partial pressure and temperatures resulted in increased surface roughness and excessive grain growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]