Noise pollution is one of the factors that affect the quality of life of the general population, especially in urban areas, where the noise levels are often high due to the presence of numerous sources, such as transport infrastructures, activities production and commercial areas, entertainment venues and other sound sources which, although temporary, such as construction sites and outdoor music events, affect general noise levels. Even if noise is one of the oldest pollutants referred to in history, for years, the problem of noise pollution has been often considered less important than others related to the environment, such as air pollution, water pollution, and waste management.The regulations in force to contain the noise have become increasingly stringent as each individual is constantly exposed to noise and often the noise is treated just as a scourge of modern society. Making noise is becoming easier and cheaper each day, but just the opposite for controlling it. Deeper studies are needed to understand the core of current noise problems; new materials and techniques are needed to control them. This book is a combination of theory and practice based on the latest research. The studies in this book range from evaluation methods for the perception of noise and outline forecast criteria that can be integrated with applications for acoustic mapping as well as the use of innovative techniques and materials for its abatement. The main purpose of this book, organized in 8 chapters, is to provide an overview of the recent studies in this field and the applications in different research studies. The authors, contributing to the success of this book, provide a series of practical applications of their recent studies aimed at the reduction of noise in different environments. The editors would like to thank all the authors who, through their studies and research, have accepted our invitation to share recent discoveries in this field with the scientific community.

Presents basic information about emergency vehicles in a book with an attached sound module.

This document was commissioned by the Facility Guidelines Institute as the sole reference for acoustics in health care facilities. It was written by the Health Care Acoustics Working Group, a permanent committee of the Acoustics Research Council (ARC), comprised of members of leading professional societies in acoustics, noise control engineering, acoustical consulting and related professions. ARC organized the health care Working Group in 2004-5 drawing its members from ten constituencies that range from medicine to law, public policy, architecture, design and engineering in order to provide constructive, guidance on sound and vibration based on research and best practices. Sound and Vibration 2.0 has been adopted as the sole reference standard for acoustics in health care facilities by: the 2010 FGI/ASHE "Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities" (used in 60 countries); the US Green Building Council’s "LEED for Healthcare" (used in 87 countries); The Green Guide for Health Care V2.2; and the International Code Council's IGCC (2011). Sound and vibration are topics of increasing prominence in the design, construction, and operation of healthcare facilities. A satisfactory acoustical environment in a healthcare facility is now viewed as an essential component of effective healthcare. Sensible acoustical and privacy planning in the early design stages of a healthcare facility project can be solved effectively and affordably with a few strokes of the designer's pencil. The recommended minimum design requirements presented in this work are therefore intended to aid designers in achieving satisfactory acoustical and privacy environments in healthcare facilities. This handbook includes comprehensive, practical, and measureable guidelines for all aspects of acoustics in the design, construction, and evaluation of all types of healthcare facilities, including large general hospitals, specialized patient care facilities, and ambulatory patient care facilities.

Art history traditionally concentrates on the visual, often at the expense of sound art. This book is about recent attempts by artists trained in (West) Germany to provoke listening experiences to awaken the ear. Their work is revolutionary in artistic terms and in what it reveals about human relations, especially concerning issues of gender.

The work of writing closed captions for television and DVD is not simply transcribing dialogue, as one might assume at first, but consists largely of making rhetorical choices. For Sean Zdenek, when captioners describe a sound they are interpreting and creating contexts, they are assigning significance, they are creating meaning that doesn t necessarily exist in the soundtrack or the script. And in nine chapters he analyzes the numerous complex rhetorical choices captioners make, from abbreviating dialogue so it will fit on the screen and keep pace with the editing, to whether and how to describe background sounds, accents, or slurred speech, to nonlinguistic forms of sound communication such as sighing, screaming, or laughing, to describing music, captioned silences (as when a continuous noise suddenly stops), and sarcasm, surprise, and other forms of meaning associated with vocal tone. Throughout, he also looks at closed captioning style manuals and draws on interviews with professional captioners and hearing-impaired viewers. Threading through all this is the novel argument that closed captions can be viewed as texts worthy of rhetorical analysis and that this analysis can lead the entertainment industry to better standards and practices for closed captioning, thereby better serve the needs of hearing-impaired viewers. The author also looks ahead to the work yet to be done in bringing better captioning practices to videos on the Internet, where captioning can take on additional functions such as enhancing searchability. While scholarly work has been done on captioning from a legal perspective, from a historical perspective, and from a technical perspective, no one has ever done what Zdenek does here, and the original analytical models he offers are richly interdisciplinary, drawing on work from the fields of technical communication, rhetoric, media studies, and disability studies."