An acoustic analysis and comparison between remotely collected and in-person laboratory collected data in vocal imitation of pitch

Restrictions on face-to-face interactions due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in early 2020 have impacted experimental behavioral research. The rapid change from in-person to online data collections has been challenging in many behavioral studies, especially those that require vocal production, and the quality of the remotely collected data needs to be investigated. The current study examines the recording quality and corresponding measures of vocal production accuracy in online and in-person settings using two measurements: harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) and fundamental frequency, f 0. Participants imitated pitch patterns extracted from recordings of song or speech, either in a laboratory or via an online platform. The results showed that the recordings from the online setting had higher HNR than those from the in-person setting, whereas the pitch imitation accuracy in both settings did not differ. We also report an experiment that simulated differences between the online and in-person settings within participants, focusing on software used, type of microphone, and presence of ambient noise. Pitch accuracy did not differ according to these variables, except ambient noise, whereas HNR again varied across conditions. Based on these results we conclude that measures of pitch accuracy are reliable across these different types of data collection, whereas finer-grained spectral measures like HNR might be affected by various factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Emergency Auscultation Sound Transmission System Using Web Conferencing Services in Japan

The impact of COVID-19 has led to a rapid increase in the demand for home medicine and telemedicine at a global level. This is also true in Japan. However, telemedicine in Japan is mainly carried out by telephone or video calls, and does not cover the provision of information by percussion, palpation, or auscultation. As a result, remote auscultation services are not widely available, and we were unable to use them for "COVID-19."In this paper, we focus on auscultation sounds and construct a mechanism to remotely transmit auscultation sounds, with the aim of increasing information that physicians can use to make judgments and thus contribute to more accurate diagnoses. Based on this, we shall consider a system that can use existing web conferencing services to transmit auscultation and enable remote auscultation in countries where specialist services cannot be used (i.e., in the case of disasters) or where such specialist services are not widely available. © 2022 IEEE.

Obstruction simulation in real-time 3D audio on edge systems

After the COVID-induced lock-downs, augmented/virtual reality turned from leisure to desired reality. Real-time 3D audio is a crucial enabler for these technologies. Nevertheless, systems offering object spatialization in 3D audio fall in two limited cases. They either require long-running pre-renders or involve powerful computing platforms. Furthermore, they mainly focus on active audio sources, while humans rely on the sound's interactions with passive obstructions to sense their environment. We propose a hardware co-processor for real-time 3D audio spatialization supporting passive obstructions. Our solution attains similar latency w.r.t. workstations while draining a tenth of the power, making it suitable for embedded applications. © 2022 IEEE.

Heat vs. Health: Home Office under a Changing Climate

Stressors are especially widespread in urban agglomerations. Common themes of built environment interventions that support health and well-being are blue and green infrastructure, indoor and outdoor air quality, thermal comfort, access to natural lighting, and acoustics. Given the current megatrends of increasing summer temperatures and the high popularity of home offices, we aimed at modeling thermal comfort changes of people working at home in three Austrian cities (Vienna, Innsbruck, and Graz) during the next decades until 2090. We present findings based on (I) an inter-disciplinary literature search and (II) indoor and outdoor climate simulations for actual and future climate scenarios. Based on the results, we discuss the potential impacts for work and human health and well-being, and we suggest a framework for the home office in "post-COVID-19 Austria” that integrates social, ecological, and economic aspects. The results of our study indicate that, in future climate scenarios, overheating of the interior can no longer be prevented without active cooling measures and nature-based solutions. Recommendations on the adjustment of behavior under climate change, including greening, adequate ventilation, and cooling techniques, are thus urgently needed for employees who are working from home in order to maintain physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Pareto-Optimized AVQI Assessment of Dysphonia: A Clinical Trial Using Various Smartphones

Multiparametric indices offer a more comprehensive approach to voice quality assessment by taking into account multiple acoustic parameters. Artificial intelligence technology can be utilized in healthcare to evaluate data and optimize decision-making processes. Mobile devices provide new opportunities for remote speech monitoring, allowing the use of basic mobile devices as screening tools for the early identification and treatment of voice disorders. However, it is necessary to demonstrate equivalence between mobile device signals and gold standard microphone preamplifiers. Despite the increased use and availability of technology, there is still a lack of understanding of the impact of physiological, speech/language, and cultural factors on voice assessment. Challenges to research include accounting for organic speech-related covariables, such as differences in conversing voice sound pressure level (SPL) and fundamental frequency (f0), recognizing the link between sensory and experimental acoustic outcomes, and obtaining a large dataset to understand regular variation between and within voice-disordered individuals. Our study investigated the use of cellphones to estimate the Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) in a typical clinical setting using a Pareto-optimized approach in the signal processing path. We found that there was a strong correlation between AVQI results obtained from different smartphones and a studio microphone, with no significant differences in mean AVQI scores between different smartphones. The diagnostic accuracy of different smartphones was comparable to that of a professional microphone, with optimal AVQI cut-off values that can effectively distinguish between normal and pathological voice for each smartphone used in the study. All devices met the proposed 0.8 AUC threshold and demonstrated an acceptable Youden index value.

A smart outreach activity for education in acoustics and speech science

Outreach activities in education were originally intended to be conducted more or less in-person. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a shift to many online activities since 2020. One such activity in which I was involved was a lecture series on speech science in Japan. In an online lecture, I asked participants to prepare a set of materials for an online workshop. For example, they prepared a cut straw and a piece of plastic sheet for making a reed-type sound source. They also prepared a pipe and a sliding part with a roll of cardboard. By combining these materials, we were able to construct a handmade vocal-tract model, even in the online setting. Another outreach activity we are trying is an online workshop where each participant controls pieces of equipment in a laboratory remotely. Even if we cannot move our physical vocal-tract model system to a specific venue, we can remotely connect the laboratory to each participant via a communication tool. If he/she sends a set of commands to the system, it will move accordingly and finally produce sounds. This remote system enables us to conduct more outreach activities in a "smart” fashion. © ICA 2022.All rights reserved

Are Acoustic Markers of Voice and Speech Signals Affected by Nose-and-Mouth-Covering Respiratory Protective Masks?

BACKGROUND: Worldwide use of nose-and-mouth-covering respiratory protective mask (RPM) has become ubiquitous during COVID19 pandemic. Consequences of wearing RPMs, especially regarding perception and production of spoken communication, are gradually emerging. The present study explored how three prevalent RPMs affect various speech and voice sound properties. METHODS: Pre-recorded sustained [a] vowels and read sentences from 47 subjects were played by a speech production model ('Voice Emitted by Spare Parts', or 'VESPA') in four conditions: without RPM (C1), with disposable surgical mask (C2), with FFP2 mask (C3), and with transparent plastic mask (C4). Differences between C1 and masked conditions were assessed with Dunnett's t test in 26 speech sound properties related to voice production (fundamental frequency, sound intensity level), voice quality (jitter percent, shimmer percent, harmonics-to-noise ratio, smoothed cepstral peak prominence, Acoustic Voice Quality Index), articulation and resonance (first and second formant frequencies, first and second formant bandwidths, spectral center of gravity, spectral standard deviation, spectral skewness, spectral kurtosis, spectral slope, and spectral energy in ten 1-kHz bands from 0 to 10 kHz). RESULTS: C2, C3, and C4 significantly affected 10, 15, and 19 of the acoustic speech markers, respectively. Furthermore, absolute differences between unmasked and masked conditions were largest for C4 and smallest for C2. CONCLUSIONS: All RPMs influenced more or less speech sound properties. However, this influence was least for surgical RPMs and most for plastic RPMs. Surgical RPMs are therefore preferred when spoken communication is priority next to respiratory protection.

Comparison of acoustics performance measurement and evaluation standard of office space and office acoustics criteria of countries

The office environment is changing according to work types, Information Technology (IT) advancements, and the Coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 situation. In order for office space users to perform their tasks comfortably and efficiently, it is necessary to secure individual privacy as well as easy communication among members. In Korea, the demand for improving the acoustic performance of office spaces is also increasing, but the related performance criteria and guidelines have not been established. In this study, standardization of office space acoustic performance measurement and evaluation methods and European countries' acoustic performance criteria were compared and reviewed. It is proposed to comprehensively review international standardization trends and acoustic performance standards in each country and to establish and utilize criteria for evaluating the acoustic performance and satisfaction of office spaces in Korea through our survey. Considering the international standardization direction and compatibility with communication and Public Address (PA) systems, it is appropriate to establish criteria using the speech transmission index or Speech Transmission Index (STI) application index. This criterion will be highly utilizable and compatible. In addition, since the office furniture industry is interested in improving the acoustic performance of office space, it is necessary to establish a labelling system for speech level reduction of office furniture.

Multiroom Speech Emotion Recognition

Automated audio systems, such as speech emotion recognition, can benefit from the ability to work from another room. No research has yet been conducted on the effectiveness of such systems when the sound source originates in a different room than the target system, and the sound has to travel between the rooms through the wall. New advancements in room-impulse-response generators enable a large-scale simulation of audio sources from adjacent rooms and integration into a training dataset. Such a capability improves the performance of data-driven methods such as deep learning. This paper presents the first evaluation of multiroom speech emotion recognition systems. The isolating policies due to COVID-19 presented many cases of isolated individuals suffering emotional difficulties, where such capabilities would be very beneficial. We perform training, with and without an audio simulation generator, and compare the results of three different models on real data recorded in a real multiroom audio scene. We show that models trained without the new generator achieve poor results when presented with multiroom data. We proceed to show that augmentation using the new generator improves the performances for all three models. Our results demonstrate the advantage of using such a generator. Furthermore, testing with two different deep learning architectures shows that the generator improves the results independently of the given architecture.

Vessel traffic influences distribution of Aotearoa New Zealand's endemic dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori)

Cetacean tourism and vessel traffic have grown considerably around the world in recent decades. At Akaroa Harbor, Aotearoa New Zealand, recreational vessel traffic, dolphin tourism, and cruise ship presence increased substantially between 2008 and 2020. We examined the relationship between vessel traffic parameters and the presence of Hector's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori) during the austral summer 2019–2020, using automated vessel tracking and autonomous passive acoustic monitoring. Data were collected between December 2019 and May 2020, including the entirety of the first COVID‐19 nationwide lockdown. Generalized additive models revealed that increasing levels of motor vessel traffic, the presence of cruise ships, and high levels of dolphin tour vessel traffic resulted in decreases in acoustic detections of dolphins. Our findings suggest that Hector's dolphins at Akaroa Harbor were displaced from core habitat in response to each of these vessel traffic parameters. We recommend that managers use immediately actionable tools to reduce the impacts of vessels on these dolphins.

Influence of interventions against spread of COVID-19 on noise levels in student restaurant

One of the main interventions against the spread of COVID-19 is so called social distancing, which has rather large consequence on activities held in the building interior. The direct impact can be seen in the limitations of the number of people present in an enclosed space at the same time in order to fulfil the necessary distance between persons. However, these rather unpleasant restrictions with dramatical impact on functioning of the so-called HORECA (hotel-restaurant-café) services, turned out to have also a positive impact on the indoor acoustic comfort. The main difference can be seen in the decreased noise levels in restaurants. This article compares acoustic performance of one space in two situations (before and during pandemic) and shows to what extent a simulation can be used for prediction of noise from quasi dynamic sound sources (i.e. talking people). © International Building Performance Simulation Association, 2022

COVID Detection Using Cough Sound

Due to the impact of COVID-19 on its emerging strains, there is now a greater need for quick identification and containment to prevent further superfluous cases. We aim to make a machine learning model which can distinguish an audio file/signal and categorize it as COVID likely or unlikely and identify the virus' infection by analyzing the user's cough sounds. By usage of real-time detection and a precisely trained ML model with verified data, the user can further assess their infection in conjunction with other available tools, which would instruct him/her to either seek medical attention or provide reassurance for a negative or false positive diagnosis provided by the other tools. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Research to Enhance the Sense of Presence Based on the Positional Relationship Between the Sound Source and the Distance

In this research, through the survey and experiments, we examined whether the reflection of distance to sounds leads to an improvement in the sense of reality, and whether it is possible to enhance the sense of presence by reproducing the feeling of distance in environment that each of audience can easily build. The basic idea is from the needs of the times: the increase in online events due to the spread of COVID-19, and the loss of sense of distance and lack of realism when watching online events. From the survey results on ‘sense of reality' at the first stage of the research, it became clear that ‘sense of reality' is composed of multi kinds of sensory elements. Therefore, it is thought that, if sounds reflect sense of distance, it would lead to the enhancement of the ‘three-dimensional feeling' and the ‘sense of cause and effect', which are components of the ‘sense of presence', and thus this results in the enhancement of the sensory reality of "being there” when viewing a video. Also, the sound is attenuated by different kinds of causes, and in the large-scale venues where events take place, it is the case that the ‘sound attenuated by the distance from the sound source' reaches most of the seats. To reproduce a sense of distance, two kinds of experiments were conducted to confirm whether people recognize it and to check whether it is reproducible. From the results, it has been shown that the feeling of distance from the object can be perceived almost accurately by the audio information and the ‘distance perception' can be altered to some extent by the volume change. Recognizing distance leads to an improvement in the three-dimensional sense, which is one of components of the sense of reality, and it is thought that matching the feeling of distance perceived by sound and the feeling of distance perceived by the image can improve the ‘sense of cause and effect'. Therefore, based on the results of the experiment, it is considered possible to enhance the sense of presence by changing the sound volume in line with what is on the video. Even in a re-viewing environment that can be generally adjusted like when participating in an event online. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Diagnosis of COVID-19 from CT Images and Respiratory Sound Signals Using Deep Learning Strategies

COVID-19 has been a major issue among various countries, and it has already affected millions of people across the world and caused nearly 4 million deaths. Various precautionary measures should be taken to bring the cases under control, and the easiest way for diagnosing the diseases should also be identified. An accurate analysis of CT has to be done for the treatment of COVID-19 infection, and this process is complex and it needs much attention from the specialist. It is also proved that the covid infection can be identified with the breathing sounds of the patient. A new framework was proposed for diagnosing COVID-19 using CT images and breathing sounds. The entire network is designed to predict the class as normal, COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia, and viral pneumonia using the multiclass classification network MLP. The proposed framework has two modules: (i) respiratory sound analysis framework and (ii) CT image analysis framework. These modules exhibit the workflow for data gathering, data preprocessing, and the development of the deep learning model (deep CNN + MLP). In respiratory sound analysis framework, the gathered audio signals are converted to spectrogram video using FFT analyzer. Features like MFCCs, ZCR, log energies, and Kurtosis are needed to be extracted for identifying dry/wet coughs, variability present in the signal, prevalence of higher amplitudes, and for increasing the performance in audio classification. All these features are extracted with the deep CNN architecture with the series of convolution, pooling, and ReLU (rectified linear unit) layers. Finally, the classification is done with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) classifier. In parallel to this, the diagnosis of the disease is improved by analyzing the CT images. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Where is the Evidence on Acoustic Considerations for Dementia Care Settings: A Scoping Review...American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) 99th Annual Conference, November 8-11, 2022, Chicago, Illinois

To provide up to date evidence on the acoustic considerations for dementia care settings, to support healthspan and quality of life. Scoping Review. Institutionalized settings to include assisted living, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, skilled nursing facilities, and other supported care environments. Individuals living with dementia. Per the nature of a scoping review, we are considering multiple levels of evidence and several aspects of the intervention of interest, to include the following: auditory environment, acoustic environment, or sound-based intervention or observation. Cognitive, behavioral, or other health related outcomes relative to participants with dementia. The initial search was carried out by a librarian and yielded 1671 articles for screening after duplicates were removed. Title and screening was carried out among 4 independent reviewers via Covidence review software. Of the initial 1671 articles, 101 were included for full text review. Full text review screening is ongoing. This will be followed by data extraction and the development of a thematic summary of the available evidence. We plan to complete this review prior to reporting at the conference. We anticipate our findings to provide preliminary insight into the importance of acoustic environments and interventions in supporting the day-to-day functional needs of older adults living with dementia in supported contexts. This preliminary insight will be used to guide future, high level evidence, needed to further elucidate this aspect of care. N/A.

CONTEMPORARY SPORTS ARENA ROOM ACOUSTICS DESIGN

In this study, the room acoustics design of sports facilities is discussed over a long-term experience on contemporary sports arenas designed and/or built-in recent years. These arenas are serving as spaces accommodating entertainment facilities from sports events to pop concerts. Acoustic design considerations vary from providing the intelligibility of the instructor to creating the required lively ambiance in these halls. Acoustical comfort conditions need to be arranged in sports arenas considering volume, function, and designated atmosphere together. The challenge of taming the reverberation time in a large arena volume increase when there is no sufficient area - approved by the design team or client- to apply sound absorptive materials. The absence of the audience after the Covid-19 pandemic has caused even a greater problem due to the lack of main sound absorptive areas in sports halls. In this study room acoustics design parameters and design limitations in sports arena projects are discussed through the available literature and in-house experience of the authors. Current practices and multi-function uses of recent sports arena designs are discussed from acoustical point of view. Comparative analysis of acoustical conditions in different cases is shared to guide future arena designs and to contribute to room acoustics studies in the field. © International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), 2022.

Acoustic Comfort in Hybrid Learning Spaces: Students Perspective

Acoustic comfort in classrooms has a great impact on the quality of education. In specific, its impact on teaching and learning experience has been widely studied and the results show that acoustic comfort is linked to learning attributes, e.g. enhancing productivity, memorizing and understanding of the taught material, mental welfare, and motivation. In this paper, we assess the acoustic comfort in hybrid classrooms, at the University of Sharjah, after classes have been reconfigured to comply with COVID-19 social distancing protocols. First, we measured the background noise and reverberation times for different types of classrooms used for teaching and learning. The results showed that most classrooms do not comply with international standards. For example, the background noise levels in the selected classrooms were found to range from 43.9-49.6 dB(A), which is higher than the recommended WHO limits. To evaluate the acoustic comfort from the perspective of the students, a survey was conducted to evaluate students' perception on acoustic conditions at the hybrid classrooms. The results showed that the majority of the students surveyed, 88%, felt that noise in classrooms affected their understanding of the material and communications with the instructor and peers. Noise sources were identified to originate from corridors, maintenance work, and construction sites within close proximity to the classrooms. Better designs are highly recommended to improve acoustic comfort to ensure an excellent student experience and the best learning environment. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

Assessing Acoustic Conditions in Hybrid Classrooms with COVID-19 Social Distancing at the University of Sharjah

In response to COVID-19 global pandemic, institutions are required to follow health protocols involving social distancing, which led to the need to redesign the teaching and learning spaces. The University of Sharjah (UOS), United Arab Emirates (UAE), has adopted a flexible hybrid teaching approach where the capacity of the classrooms is reduced to 50% and added the necessary audiovisual equipment to support the hybrid teaching model. As a result, the acoustic conditions are expected to be affected. The aim of this study is to assess the acoustic parameters in hybrid classrooms with a focus on reverberation time, sound clarity (C50), and strength (G). Measurements of the reverberation time, clarity, and strength were taken in six different classrooms were performed using a sound analyzer and ROOM EQ Wizard software in accordance with the guidelines set by ISO 3382. In addition, we compared the experimental data with the obtained from Sabine's diffuse-field theory and from a model developed by E. Nilsson, which considers that the absorption in classrooms is mainly due to an absorbing ceiling. Reverberation times results show that Leq (dBA) varies from 43.0-50.9 dBA. Results obtained from the theoretical model showed the same overall behavior over the investigated frequency range. Sound clarity and strength measurements indicated that the acoustic conditions in hybrid classrooms do not satisfy the international standards with the exception of one classroom, which was acoustically treated. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF CRUISE SHIPS TO THE SOUND EMISSION OF A HARBOUR

In recent years, the growth of cruise tourism has often been at the centre of controversy due to the environmental impact, especially for those harbours that, for historical and urban planning reasons, are in close contact with urban areas of particular value or under cultural heritage protection. The deadlock of cruise activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency created the conditions for observing the effects of the substantial disappearance of a specific sound source from the harbours of many cities. This paper presents the evaluation of the contribution of large cruise ships to the overall noise emitted by a specialized cruise harbour and the consequences of their absence on the urban acoustic climate. © International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), 2022.

MEMs Based Low-Cost Urban Noise Monitoring: Tests and Case Study

Noise pollution has been one of the main causes of citizens' discomfort in the urban centers in Brazil, an issue enhanced by the Covid pandemic that resulted in an increase of noise complaints, especially those related to noise from construction sites. This context triggered the construction industry to pursue solutions to understand the acoustic reality and minimize the impacts through regulations that require long-term noise measurements. Due to the necessity of a comprehensive evaluation in several locations, class 1 Sound Level Meters measurement systems can hardly be considered because of their high costs. This paper discusses the practical implementation of MEMs in a low-cost monitoring system for urban noise, focusing on construction sites. The prototype, based on a Raspberry Pi (a single-board computer model widely used in IoT projects) and a MEMs microphone with I2S interface for high-fidelity digital audio communication, was compared in a controlled environment to a Sound Level Meter of Class 1 through validation tests, such as calibration, frequency response, and dynamic range. Field measurements were also carried out in typical urban noise-generating sound environments. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.