Pierre Chigot made an interview with Nicolas Trompette, who is working at INRS. INRS is a French Institute competent in the area of occupational risk prevention.
Nicolas, presented a paper about noise in warehouses and also has a specific interest in sound in open plan solutions.
INRS is a French Institute competent in the area of occupational risk prevention: protecting workers’ health and safety and preventing occupational accidents or diseases.
More about the organisation can be found on the INRS website
Dr. Maria Klatte - focusing on specific needs for young listeners
Dr. Maria Klatte had a lecture named "Effects of classroom acoustic on performance and well being in elementary school Children: A field Study". She presented the interesting results and had a great response after her lecture.
Holger Brokmann took the chance to talk with her about the results and the importance of acoustic treatments in school buildings for children.
Dr. Maria Klatte
Listen to the Interview in german.
(SOUNDFILE)
For more information please contact Maria or can download the abstract of the study at the website of the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern.
"The 24th April Bridge" creates a unique acoustic experience at conference
Within 1km of the Congress centre the imposing road and rail bridge over the Tagus "Ponte sobre o Tejo"
Listen to the unique soundfile which characterises the popular area surrounding the bridge.
Colin Campbell spoke with Vitor Rosao Director at Doutorando Environmental Acoustics who explained....
The bridge was originally called "Ponte Salazar" after the former dictator and was completed in 1966, however it was renamed "Ponte de 24 April" after the revolution which diposed Salzar. The bridge transmits a unique tonal noise which varies with the volume and velocity of the vehicles travelling over it. It is clearly audible at the conference 1km away an can be heard inside the centre. Vitor explained that the steel structure, set out in a uniform grid below the the road surface contributes the the unique acoustic hum the delegates experience at the conference which sounds a bit like a large swarm of bees or perhaps outside a World Cup stadium in South Africa with the noise of Vuvuzelas!
Vitor kindly answered some questions which we have been asking many delegates,
We've been asking......
1:
What brings you to Inter-noise 2010?
Working with acoustics locally in Portugal
2:
What topic or session is the most interesting so far? Why?
Environmental noise particularly and the EU.CNOSSOS-EU it's my day to day work
3:
What would you like to see at a future conference?
More local acoustic experiences/features in an entertainment form. For example Fado singers at the conference would be good but acoustic examples which highlight cultural or engineering examples would be very engaging
4:
If you had an unlimited research budget what would you explore/research?
Exploring vertical water fountain acoustic barriers instead of fences in key city centre locations where they can become a tourist attraction as well including feature lighting, colours day/night effects.
Also share the Brasil stadium research about noise levels to let the world realise that the present craze with blowing the Vuvuzelas (large World Cup horns) is a serious problem.
5:
What advice would you give an end user planning a new building to ensure they optimize the acoustic environment?
Consult an acoustic consultant as soon as possible for the best advice
More specific questions:
Education
Are you being asked to design for a specific pedagogic style in classrooms?
No
How would your acoustic design differ if you were asked to take the changes of the pedagogical styles in account ? (Lecture / Group work)
Look at the individual considerations
Office / General
How do you merge concrete core activation and acoustics in your consulting?
No
Do you see the need of a better acoustical descriptor than RT for open plan solutions - if yes, what would / do you use instead?
yes, STI & Early Decay Time
Healthcare
Do room acoustics receive enough attention in hospital design?
Not applicable
What should be done to secure that room acoustic benefits are turned into reality?
Not applicable
Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin
Have you heard of Ecophon's Acoustic Bulletin?
No
Are you a subscriber?
No
What could AB do to assist your day to day work or future work?
Information about noise on people would be good
Bonus question
Who do you think will win the football World Cup?
Portugal!
One hour before she is expected to chair the session on sound in healthcare envrionments, we catch up with Kerstin Persson Waye, professor in occupational and environmental medicine with Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. We ask her to discuss the upcoming session and her lecture in particular.
Per Larsen spoke with Jesper at Inter-Noise about his research project in Copenhagen regarding "Risk factors of noise annoyance in teachers in schools with classrooms characterised by different reverberation times"
Jesper has worked closely with Soren P. Lund a colleague and Per M. Nielsen, Akustik Aps.
Please click here for link to research project information in Danish
Guus Klamerek discusses Lau Nijs' paper following the "Classroom Acoustics" session yesterday. Lau's paper explored "Optimum absorption and vocal output in classrooms with U50"
Lau who teaches at Delft University in the Netherlands, explores the parameter U50 which compares early sound reflections <50m/s with later and detrimental reflections >50m/s. This is similar to C50 and D50 but it also adds noise.
In the atrium of the conference building, Katrin met up with Lotta Johansson, who is a PhD study with Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenbrug University. Lotta will make a presentation on the relation between sound and ICU delirium in intensive care units.(ICU). Katrin is particularly interested in her lecture and Lotta likes to share her experience from the study with Acoustic Bulletin. Listen to the interview with Lotta.
You presented at Internoise 2010 a paper entitled “Speech intelligibility as an annoyance index”. What’s the reason of such idea?
- Noise annoyance is very subjective matter and individual estimations can vary a lot depending on mood or personal tolerance to noise of subjects. Moreover...
noise annoyance strongly depends on one’s activity. The same noise can be estimated as a ..., more or less annoying. How does someone estimate the same noise during rest and when trying to communicate?
How did you carry out your experiment?
- We prepared a series of tests of speech comprehension in noise. Subjects had to cope with nine different types of distracting sounds trying to understand a sentence matrix test presented at constant level of 61 dBA. Distracting noise level was variable depending on subjects’ difficulties in comprehesion.
What’s your conclusion?
- Experiment shows that during communication type of distracting noise is important for its annoyance. In our test, speech comprehesion on the level of 50% was possible under train noise of LAeqT = 86 dB. When noise sample was changed from train to babble, similar level of comprehension was possible only to level of LAeqT = 68,8 dB.
Results show that noise annoyance ranking of the noises by using the speech intelligibility scores are similar to the ranking used in field studies. However, there is a large difference between the noise annoyance ratings obtained in a field studies and speech reception threshold obtained for these nine noises. While in noise annoyance ratings collected in field studies there are large interindividual differences among participants’ annoyance judgments when it comes to speech intelligibility scores participants agree very well in their judgments.
Berit Lindahl is one of the two projectleader for a research programme called healing environments in intensive care units. The programme is a cooperation between Borås University College and Sahlgrenska Academy, both in Sweden.
We asked Berit to give us a little bit of insight in the different studies that are planned.
Who is Berit Lindahl?
Berit is a certified nurse, university lecturer and Doctor of Medical Sciences & Post Doc
Berit Lindahl's research area concerns the room design and the sound envrionment in intensive care units. She also conducts research that describes the home as the venue for enforcement - particularly where people are treated with the respirator / ventilator at home.
Current Projects
- Studies on sound and noise levels in intensive care
- Technology dependent children and their parents and carers' experiences of care at home
Recent publication
Healthcare on evidence based design gound (att vårda på evidensbaserad grund) (02/10)
The sound of Vuvuzela's - The most annoying sound in the world
It's hard to not have heard the sound of vuvuzela's, to some the most annoying sound in the world. Judge yourself and listen here
Read here the explanation of an acoustic expert on how the Vuvuzela's make their sound.
The WC sofar...
Portugal-Ivory coast 0-0
After the start of the WC, the first matches have been played and have created a lot of positive reactions among some of the participants to the Inter-noise conference.
Per Larsen spoke with Richard Ballinger and Lisbeth Rasmussen of COWI today following his paper regarding "How can large reverberant rooms be used for group conversation". Per made an interview with Richard after his lecture.
This paper at Internoise 2010 concerns establishing good acoustical quality in large reverberant rooms where conversation in groups is intended – such as study work in schools. Model calculations for a very reverberant hall using only absorbing screens have shown suitable acoustics for group work despite legislation not being complied to. They looked especially at values of speech intelligibility and other parameters such as speech clarity and spatial decay. Expected background levels and signal/noise ratios were very important to assess when considering speech considering speech intelligibility, and the work included this. Results showed that achieving good privacy and local optimised values could be achieved with absorbing screens and in some cases are better than the room with a lowered reverberation without screens.
Contact Richard Ballinger or Lisbeth Rasmussen at www.cowi.com
Tuesday morning, at Internoise 2010; Carsten Svensson is interviewing Patrick of Genesis from France. Genesis Acoustics works with sound quality and offers unique solutions to analyse sound perception. Genesis is a leading french company for audio simulators and 3D sound playback systems,
Listen to the interview that Carsten has with Patrick
We are meeting Diogo Alarcão in the exhibition area of the conference.
Diogo is the exhibition manager for Internoise 2010 and although he is extremely busy, he likes to take a minute to explain to Acoustic Bulletin who he is and how the conference is going. He is very pleased with the 1200 participants sofar...
Ann Charlotte Thysell is a technical doctor in acoustics and works as an acoustic consultant for Tyrens in Sweden.
What brings you to Inter-noise 2010, Ann-Charlotte?
- Most of all, a good mixture of all kinds of acoustic topis and especially within the field of building and room acoustics. And a meeting on Round Robin Tests planned on Thursday this week.
What topic is most interesting sofar and why?
- The session on classroom acoustics and especially Maria klatte's lecture. It is a clear and interesting study on the need to lower reverberation times, since her study showed that it affects the willingness of pupils of coming back to school after a leave.
What would you like to see at a future conference?
- I would like to see more studies showing the link between subjectieve experience of people and and the design of the physical environment (it’s my speciality and interst from the time I was a PhD student.)
If you had an unlimited research budget, what would you explore?
- There is an increasing awareness of the role of subjectiveness of people and it is not only about regulations. More awareness is present sofar in schools, due to regulations and occupational health services, compared to offices. I would like to invest into showing that effectiveness of office staff can increase while working with acoustics and to come up with figures and facts and guidelines, a standard will support that work.
And last, what advice would you give an enduser planning a new building to ensure they optimize the sound envrionment?
- I would point out to them to start as early as possible, to involve a professional and be sure what you want and what the objective of the room is. As favourite descriptors she mentions, privacy radius and DL2, but states at the same time that every situation deserves the use of different parameters.
Bonus question: Who will win the WorldCup in Football?
-Spain
Reporting live from INTER-NOISE 2010 conference (13th-16th June)
The conference is centred around noise and sustainability
Follow us throughout next week to keep up to date with interviews, articles and interesting issues during the conference.
If you want to know more about a specific topic at Inter-noise 2010 or if you want us to interview somebody specific, please contact us at acoustics@ecophon.se
- Pierre Chigot, Ecophon (France) will present a paper looking at balancing good acoustics whilst utilising the structural thermal mass of the building. Click here to read the abstract
- Nils-Åke Andersson, Ecophon (Sweden)will present a paper about the Round Robin Investigation concerning test code ISO 354
Along with the above 3 papers we will interview many participants regarding their papers, what they find of interest at the conference and what is new.
Sustainability does not only relate to recycling of materials and reduction of emissions, it also includes acoustics! The New Zealand Acoustical Society hosts a satellite conference in connection with the ICA 2010 conference in Sydney.
So if you want to explore this subject more you may want to participate in the International Symposium on Sustainability in Acoustics: 29-31 August 2010 in Auckland.
Persons involved in the organising of this event include James Whitlock (Marshall Day Acoustics), George Dodd (University of Auckland), Grant Emms (Scion) etc.
