Estimating the Performance of Sound Restoration Hearing Protectors by Using the Speech Intelligibility Index

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda S. Azman ◽  
David S. Yantek
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Test Fixture ◽  
Electronic Sound ◽  
Human Subject Testing ◽  
Hearing Protectors ◽  
Speech Intelligibility Index ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
The Impact

Despite advances in engineering noise controls and the use of administrative controls, miners are still dependent on hearing protection devices for prevention of noise-induced hearing loss. However, miners often raise concerns about the audibility of spoken communication when wearing conventional hearing protectors. Electronic technologies that selectively process and restore sounds from outside of hearing protectors have been suggested as a partial remedy to the audibility problem. To assess the potential benefits of this technology for miners, NIOSH tested the impact of nine electronic sound restoration hearing protectors on speech intelligibility in selected mining background noises. Because of the number of devices and potential settings of those devices, it was necessary to narrow the choices before conducting human subject testing. This was done by testing the nine devices on an acoustic test fixture (ATF) to acquire one-third-octave-band data, and then calculating the speech intelligibility index (SII) to determine estimates of performance across device, noise and setting. The estimates of speech intelligibility obtained with the SII are highly correlated with the intelligibility of speech under adverse listening conditions such as noise, reverberation, and filtering. The results of fixture based testing indicate that performance varies little between most devices, with few showing exceptionally good or poor estimated speech intelligibility. The most significant differences in estimated performance using the devices were between the different noise sources used, regardless of device or setting. The findings of this research were used to select the devices and settings for subsequent human subject based speech intelligibility testing. The human subject testing results largely concurred with the findings from the acoustic test fixture testing and calculation of speech intelligibility index. Specifically, variations in background noise led to the greatest differences in speech intelligibility.

scholarly journals Acoustical Evaluation of Six ‘Green’ Office Buildings

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Sound Absorption ◽  
Internal Noise ◽  
External Noise ◽  
Office Buildings ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Speech Intelligibility Index

To explain the reactions of the building occupants to their acoustical environments, meetings with the designers, walk-through surveys, and detailed acoustical measurements were done. The objective was to determine how design decisions affect office acoustical environments, and how to improve the acoustical design of ‘green’ office buildings. Design-performance criteria were established. Measurements were made of noise level, reverberation time, speech-intelligibility index (SII), and noise isolation. Noise levels were atypically low in unoccupied buildings with no mechanical ventilation, but excessive in areas near external walls next to noisy external noise sources—especially with windows open for ventilation—and in occupied buildings. Reverberation times were excessive in areas with large volumes and insufficient sound absorption. Speech intelligibility was generally adequate, but speech privacy was inadequate in shared and open-office areas, and into private offices with the doors open for ventilation. Improvement of the acoustical design of ‘green’ buildings must include increasing the external-internal noise isolation and that between workplaces, and the use of adequate sound absorption to control reverberation and noise.

Translating Principles of Speech Science to Clinical Practice: Current and Future Trends in Craniofacial Disorders

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Zajac
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Behavioral Management ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Speech Science ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Opinion Article

Abstract The purpose of this opinion article is to review the impact of the principles and technology of speech science on clinical practice in the area of craniofacial disorders. Current practice relative to (a) speech aerodynamic assessment, (b) computer-assisted single-word speech intelligibility testing, and (c) behavioral management of hypernasal resonance are reviewed. Future directions and/or refinement of each area are also identified. It is suggested that both challenging and rewarding times are in store for clinical researchers in craniofacial disorders.

scholarly journals Exoplanet mass estimation for a sample of targets for the Ariel mission

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Barnes ◽  
C. A. Haswell
Keyword(s):  
Radial Velocity ◽  
Input Parameter ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Time Commitment ◽  
Low Mass ◽  
Time Required ◽  
Fixed Input ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Quadrature Sampling

AbstractAriel’s ambitious goal to survey a quarter of known exoplanets will transform our knowledge of planetary atmospheres. Masses measured directly with the radial velocity technique are essential for well determined planetary bulk properties. Radial velocity masses will provide important checks of masses derived from atmospheric fits or alternatively can be treated as a fixed input parameter to reduce possible degeneracies in atmospheric retrievals. We quantify the impact of stellar activity on planet mass recovery for the Ariel mission sample using Sun-like spot models scaled for active stars combined with other noise sources. Planets with necessarily well-determined ephemerides will be selected for characterisation with Ariel. With this prior requirement, we simulate the derived planet mass precision as a function of the number of observations for a prospective sample of Ariel targets. We find that quadrature sampling can significantly reduce the time commitment required for follow-up RVs, and is most effective when the planetary RV signature is larger than the RV noise. For a typical radial velocity instrument operating on a 4 m class telescope and achieving 1 m s−1 precision, between ~17% and ~ 37% of the time commitment is spent on the 7% of planets with mass Mp < 10 M⊕. In many low activity cases, the time required is limited by asteroseismic and photon noise. For low mass or faint systems, we can recover masses with the same precision up to ~3 times more quickly with an instrumental precision of ~10 cm s−1.

scholarly journals The Influence of Trading Locations on Equity Returns

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Nguyen N.T. Vo
Keyword(s):  
Risk Premium ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Equity Returns ◽  
Stock Exchanges ◽  
Home Market ◽  
Trade Effect ◽  
Market Index ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
The Impact

This paper evaluates the impact of trading locations on equity returns by examining the stock price behaviour of three Anglo-Dutch dual-listed companies which result from mergers where two corporations agree to function as a single operating business, but maintain separate identities. The shares of these stocks are traded not only in their home market but also on several US stock exchanges in the form of American Depository Receipts. Regressing the return differentials on these dual-listed and cross-listed stocks on the relative market index returns and currency changes provides evidence of an apparent violation of the Law of One Price. The regression results show that the return on each part of dual-listed companies is highly correlated with the market on which it is most intensively traded. Similarly, returns on cross-listed stocks have considerably higher co-movement with US market indices and considerably lower co-movement with home-market indices than their home-market counterparts. Market risk premium is not a significant explanatory variable of the location of trade effect.

scholarly journals Quantum Divide and Compute: Exploring the Effect of Different Noise Sources

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ayral ◽  
François-Marie Le Régent ◽  
Zain Saleem ◽  
Yuri Alexeev ◽  
Martin Suchara
Keyword(s):  
Success Probability ◽  
Quantum Circuit ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Output Distribution ◽  
Tensor Network ◽  
Learning Machine ◽  
Society Annual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Noise Models ◽  
Detailed Derivation

AbstractOur recent work (Ayral et al. in Proceedings of IEEE computer society annual symposium on VLSI, ISVLSI, pp 138–140, 2020. 10.1109/ISVLSI49217.2020.00034) showed the first implementation of the Quantum Divide and Compute (QDC) method, which allows to break quantum circuits into smaller fragments with fewer qubits and shallower depth. This accommodates the limited number of qubits and short coherence times of quantum processors. This article investigates the impact of different noise sources—readout error, gate error and decoherence—on the success probability of the QDC procedure. We perform detailed noise modeling on the Atos Quantum Learning Machine, allowing us to understand tradeoffs and formulate recommendations about which hardware noise sources should be preferentially optimized. We also describe in detail the noise models we used to reproduce experimental runs on IBM’s Johannesburg processor. This article also includes a detailed derivation of the equations used in the QDC procedure to compute the output distribution of the original quantum circuit from the output distribution of its fragments. Finally, we analyze the computational complexity of the QDC method for the circuit under study via tensor-network considerations, and elaborate on the relation the QDC method with tensor-network simulation methods.

Binaural speech-to-noise loudness ratio at the speech reception threshold in vehicles

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-179
Author(s):  
Nilolina Samardzic ◽  
Brian C.J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
New Method ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Speech Reception ◽  
Typical Error ◽  
Transmission Index ◽  
Speech Transmission ◽  
Articulation Index ◽  
Speech Intelligibility Index ◽  
Binaural Listening

Traditional methods for predicting the intelligibility of speech in the presence of noise inside a vehicle, such as the Articulation Index (AI), the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII), and the Speech Transmission Index (STI), are not accurate, probably because they do not take binaural listening into account; the signals reaching the two ears can differ markedly depending on the positions of the talker and listener. We propose a new method for predicting the intelligibility of speech in a vehicle, based on the ratio of the binaural loudness of the speech to the binaural loudness of the noise, each calculated using the method specified in ISO 532-2 (2017). The method was found to give accurate predictions of the speech reception threshold (SRT) measured under a variety of conditions and for different positions of the talker and listener in a car. The typical error in the predicted SRT was 1.3 dB, which is markedly smaller than estimated using the SII and STI (2.0 dB and 2.1 dB, respectively).

Quantifying the Relation Between Speech Quality and Speech Intelligibility

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 714-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill E. Preminger ◽  
Dianne J. Van Tasell
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Speech Quality ◽  
Category Rating ◽  
Single Dimension ◽  
Quality Dimensions ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Quality Measurements

The purpose of the present research was to examine the relation between speech quality and speech intelligibility. Speech quality measurements were made using continuous discourse and a category rating procedure for the following dimensions: intelligibility, pleasantness, loudness, effort, and total impression. Measurements were made using a group of listeners with normal hearing for a set of stimulus conditions in which intelligibility varied, and for a set of stimulus conditions in which intelligibility was held constant near 100%. When ratings were made for a set of stimulus conditions in which intelligibility was allowed to vary (a) intersubject reliability was high (i.e., different listeners interpreted the dimensions in a similar manner); and (b) the speech quality dimensions of intelligibility, effort, and loudness were indistinguishable. When ratings were made for a set of stimulus conditions in which intelligibility was held constant (a) intersubject reliability was reduced, indicating that different listeners interpreted the dimensions in different ways; (b) most listeners rated each dimension differently, indicating that the dimensions were unique; and (c) across listeners, no single dimension was highly correlated with total impression. These results can be used in order to examine the relation between speech quality and speech intelligibility.

scholarly journals Exploiting correlated molecular-dynamics networks to counteract enzyme activity–stability trade-off

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (52) ◽  
pp. E12192-E12200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoran Yu ◽  
Paul A. Dalby
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Dynamics ◽  
Molecular Dynamics Simulations ◽  
Active Site ◽  
Dynamic Networks ◽  
Aromatic Aldehydes ◽  
Active Site Residues ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Dynamics Simulations ◽  
The Impact

The directed evolution of enzymes for improved activity or substrate specificity commonly leads to a trade-off in stability. We have identified an activity–stability trade-off and a loss in unfolding cooperativity for a variant (3M) of Escherichia coli transketolase (TK) engineered to accept aromatic substrates. Molecular dynamics simulations of 3M revealed increased flexibility in several interconnected active-site regions that also form part of the dimer interface. Mutating the newly flexible active-site residues to regain stability risked losing the new activity. We hypothesized that stabilizing mutations could be targeted to residues outside of the active site, whose dynamics were correlated with the newly flexible active-site residues. We previously stabilized WT TK by targeting mutations to highly flexible regions. These regions were much less flexible in 3M and would not have been selected a priori as targets using the same strategy based on flexibility alone. However, their dynamics were highly correlated with the newly flexible active-site regions of 3M. Introducing the previous mutations into 3M reestablished the WT level of stability and unfolding cooperativity, giving a 10.8-fold improved half-life at 55 °C, and increased midpoint and aggregation onset temperatures by 3 °C and 4.3 °C, respectively. Even the activity toward aromatic aldehydes increased up to threefold. Molecular dynamics simulations confirmed that the mutations rigidified the active-site via the correlated network. This work provides insights into the impact of rigidifying mutations within highly correlated dynamic networks that could also be useful for developing improved computational protein engineering strategies.

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