1,720,963 research outputs found
Il controllo del rumore tramite un semaforo acustico intelligente che aiuta a regolare la propria emissione vocale: S&N-S Light
No full textGli studi attuali confermano che il rumore sia fra le principali cause del peggioramento della qualità della vita nelle aree urbane e negli ambienti densamente occupati. Nelle aree urbane le principali fonti di inquinamento acustico comprendono, oltre al traffico stradale, il rumore legato alla vita notturna. Sono diverse le azioni intraprese dalle amministrazioni comunali per affrontare e risolvere il fenomeno, ma non sembrano ancora sufficienti ad arginare un problema sempre più diffuso. Negli ambienti densamente occupati, quali scuole, locali di ristorazione ecc., oltre ai rumori generati dagli impianti e di impatto, una delle principali sorgenti di inquinamento acustico è il livello della voce delle persone. Studi che valutano la percezione dell'acustica negli ambienti scolastici da parte di studenti e docenti hanno individuato proprio nella voce degli studenti che parlano all'interno dell'aula il disturbo principale. Inoltre, numerosi monitoraggi del rumore nelle scuole hanno fatto emergere un'esposizione elevata specialmente nelle scuole materne ed elementari. La conseguenza principale dell'esposizione a livelli di rumore eccessivi è già stata dimostrata essere l'insorgenza di danni uditivi e di laringopatie nel corpo docente, oltre ad essere causa di difficoltà di apprendimento e perdita di attenzione negli alunni. Risulta quindi molto importante sviluppare strumenti e strategie per sensibilizzare gli utenti circa gli effetti della loro emissione vocale sulle condizioni acustiche dell'ambiente. Per questo è stato sviluppato e brevettato un semaforo acustico intelligente, lo Speech & Noise Stop Light (S&N-S light), che misura i livelli di rumore presenti in ambienti densamente occupati e che suggerisce un autocontrollo del livello di voce basandosi sulla segnalazione luminosa dei semafori stradali. L'innovazione del sistema è quella di essere uno strumento che non reagisce ai rumori istantanei e che si adatta automaticamente alle condizioni generali presenti nell'ambiente. Ad ora sono stati realizzati sei prototipi di S&N-S Light, impiegati in tre campagne di misura che hanno coinvolto le aule di una scuola superiore, il dehor di un locale notturno in un contesto urbano e le sale di un locale di ristorazione. L'obiettivo di queste campagne di monitoraggio è stato orientato a sensibilizzare l'autoregolazione del livello della voce degli utenti in presenza del dispositivo. Dai risultati è emerso un abbassamento dei livelli di rumore, in particolare quando l'utilizzo del semaforo è affiancato da una campagna informativa di sensibilizzazione tramite la diretta comunicazione verbal
Relationships between classroom acoustics and voice parameters of teachers at the beginning and at the end of a school year
No full textThe objective of this longitudinal study is twofold: to determine changes in the voice use of teachers along a school year and to study the relationships between voice and classroom acoustics parameters, which account for the background noise level during the teaching hours too. Thirty-one teachers from two secondary schools in Torino (Italy) were involved at the beginning of a school year and twentytwo of them participated in the monitoring campaign also at the end of the same school year too. Each teacher was asked to perform an interview before each monitoring in order to obtain reference values of conversational voice. Teachers adjust their voice significantly with noise and reverberation, both at the beginning and at the end of a school year. Moreover, teachers who worked in worst classroom acoustic conditions showed higher voice sound pressure levels at the end of the school year. Based on these results, it is of great importance to improve classroom acoustics to allow teachers reducing their vocal effort during the working hours at school
A longitudinal study on vocal behavior of teachers in classrooms and relationships with classroom acoustics
Full text linkThe objective of the longitudinal study presented in this work is twofold: to determine changes in the voice use of teachers along a school year and to study the relationships between voice and classroom acoustics parameters, which account for the background noise level during the teaching hours too. Thirty-one teachers from two secondary schools in Torino (Italy) were involved at the beginning of a school year and twenty-two of them participated in the monitoring campaign also at the end of the same school year too. Teachers adjust their voice significantly with noise and reverberation, both at the beginning and at the end of a school year. Moreover, teachers who worked in worst classroom acoustic conditions showed higher voice sound pressure levels at the end of the school year. Finally, a good predictive model to estimate the sound pressure level in front of the speaker's mouth from the background noise level and the reverberation time was foun
Professional voice use in high school classrooms: relationships between classroom acoustics and voice parameters of teachers at the beginning and at the end of a school year
Full text linkObjective: To accurately determine changes in the voice use of teachers along a school year. Furthermore, the relationship between vocal parameters, classroom acoustics and noise is statistically investigated.
Methods: 37 teachers from two high schools in Torino (Italy) participated in this study at the beginning of a school year. 32 of them took part in the study also at the end of the same school year.
In each period teachers were monitored repeatedly, adopting the same procedure, using the Voice Care device, which consists in a contact microphone to be placed at the jugular notch connected to a data logger. Vocal acquisitions contained information on the voice-use for entire lessons, from which plenary lesson monitorings were extracted since they require the highest phonation load. Each teacher performed an interview before each monitoring to obtain a conversational speech level. Sound pressure level (SPL), fundamental frequency (F0) and phonation time percentage (Dt%) were evaluated to characterize the vocal behavior and fatigue under different lessons and periods. A perceptual assessment of voice was also performed to investigate changes in the vocal health of teachers along a school year.
Results: Voice parameters were analyzed in relation with the reverberation and noise conditions in which they were measured. Overall, it appeared that teachers adjust their voice significantly with the reverberation time both at the beginning and at the end of the school year, as well as with noise. Moreover, teachers who worked in worst acoustic conditions showed an increase in SPL at the end of the school year.
Conclusions: Classroom acoustics and noise significantly influence teachers’ voice throughout an entire school year. To prevent from voice-related pathologies it is therefore important to solve acoustical issues as well as to determine a prevention program that easily allows monitoring the voice status of professionals in their workspaces
A one-school year longitudinal study of secondary school teachers' voice parameters and the influence of classroom acoustics
No full textRecent literature reports that a large percentage of teachers complain that teaching has an adverse effect on their voice status. Thus, more needs to be done to study their vocal behavior. The objective of this longitudinal study was twofold: to determine changes in the voice use of teachers over a school year, and to study the relationships between voice use and classroom acoustic parameters. Thirty-one teachers from two secondary schools in Turin (Italy) were involved at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, and 22 of them also participated at the end of the same school year. The results show that teachers adjust their voices with noise and reverberation. A minimum value of the sound pressure level of voice (SPL) was found at a mid-frequency reverberation time of 0.8 s in both periods. Moreover, the teachers who worked in the worst classroom acoustic conditions showed an increase of 2.3 dB in the mean SPL and a decrease of 10% in the voicing time percentage at the end of the school year. A predictive model that can be used to estimate the mean SPL from the background noise level and the reverberation time, based on collected data, is here proposed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Long-term monitoring campaigns in primary school: the effects of noise monitoring system with lighting feedback on noise levels generated by pupils in classrooms
No full textNoise levels generated by pupils talking and moving greatly affect teaching and
learning process in primary schools. Teachers tend to raise their voice level in order
to improve intelligibility under noisy learning environment, negatively affecting
their vocal health. More efforts need to be done to study an educational method to
reduce chatting noise directly involving occupants’ behavior. This study aimed to
evaluate the effects on noise reduction generated by active involvement of the pupils
in lowering their voice volume when advised by a noise monitoring system with
lighting feedback, namely SEM (Speech and Sound SEMaphore). Monitoring
campaigns were carried out over 3 scholastic years in 13 primary school classes (4÷5
for year) in Turin (Italy). The background noise level, L90, was measured in two
conditions with the lighting feedback of SEM switched off and on. The comparison
between these conditions was analyzed for the overall classes for a total of 550 cases.
The results showed an improvement in 51% of cases in terms of decrease of L90 mean
values when SEM lighting feedback was on, where the average decrease of the L90
mean values was of about 3.0, 2.7 and 3.3 dB in first, second and third scholastic
year, respectively
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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