Sound Masking
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Sound Masking
Sound masking is the inclusion of generated sound (commonly, though inaccurately, referred to as "white noise" or "pink noise") into an environment to mask unwanted sound. It relies on auditory masking. Sound masking is not a form of active noise control (noise cancellation technique); however, it can reduce or eliminate the perception of sound. Sound masking is applied to an entire area to improve acoustical satisfaction, thus improving the acoustical privacy of the space. This can help an individual focus and thereby enhance productivity. Architectural acoustics Sound masking means controlling background sounds in a developed environment. It is significant and prioritizes modifying the background sound (in contrast to background noise); however, there is substantial evidence produced and published by Banneker (BBN) and Kavanaugh (et al., 1962 ''Speech Privacy in Buildings'') indicating that acoustical satisfaction within a space cannot be guaranteed without consideration of t ...
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White Noise
In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, including physics, acoustical engineering, telecommunications, and statistical forecasting. White noise refers to a statistical model for signals and signal sources, rather than to any specific signal. White noise draws its name from white light, although light that appears white generally does not have a flat power spectral density over the visible band. In discrete time, white noise is a discrete signal whose samples are regarded as a sequence of serially uncorrelated random variables with zero mean and finite variance; a single realization of white noise is a random shock. Depending on the context, one may also require that the samples be independent and have identical probability distribution (in other words independent and iden ...
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Roadway Noise
Roadway noise is the collective sound energy emanating from motor vehicles. It consists chiefly of road surface, tire, engine/transmission, aerodynamic, and braking elements. Noise of rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise and increases with higher vehicle speeds. In developed and developing countries, roadway noise contributes a proportionately large share of the total societal noise pollution. In the U.S., it contributes more to environmental noise exposure than any other noise source. History Roadway noise began to be measured in a widespread manner in the 1960s, as computer modeling of this phenomenon began to become meaningful. After passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and Noise Control Act, the demand for detailed analysis soared, and decision makers began to look to acoustical scientists for answers regarding the planning of new roadways and the design of noise mitigation. Partial bans on motor vehic ...
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Noise Regulation
Noise regulation includes statutes or guidelines relating to sound transmission established by national, state or provincial and municipal levels of government. After the watershed passage of the United States Noise Control Act of 1972,U.S. Noise Pollution and Abatement Act of 1972, P.L. 92-574, 86 Stat. 1234, - other local and state governments passed further regulations. A noise regulation restricts the amount of noise, the duration of noise and the source of noise. It usually places restrictions for certain times of the day. Although the United Kingdom and Japan enacted national laws in 1960 and 1967 respectively, these laws were not at all comprehensive or fully enforceable as to address generally rising ambient noise, enforceable numerical source limits on aircraft and motor vehicles or comprehensive directives to local government. History ] United States initial legislation In the 1960s and earlier, few people recognized that citizens might be entitled to be protected f ...
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Noise Mitigation
Noise control or noise mitigation is a set of strategies to reduce noise pollution or to reduce the impact of that noise, whether outdoors or indoors. Overview The main areas of noise mitigation or abatement are: transportation noise control, architectural design, urban planning through zoning codes, and occupational noise control. Roadway noise and aircraft noise are the most pervasive sources oenvironmental noise Social activities may generate noise levels that consistently affect the health of populations residing in or occupying areas, both indoor and outdoor, near entertainment venues that feature amplified sounds and music that present significant challenges for effective noise mitigation strategies. Multiple techniques have been developed to address interior sound levels, many of which are encouraged by local building codes. In the best case of project designs, planners are encouraged to work with design engineers to examine trade-offs of roadway design and architectural ...
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Noise Health Effects
Noise health effects are the physical and psychological health consequences of regular exposure to consistent elevated sound levels. Noise from traffic, in particular, is considered by the World Health Organization to be one of the worst environmental stressors for humans, second only to air pollution. Elevated workplace or environmental noise can cause hearing impairment, tinnitus, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, annoyance, and sleep disturbance. Changes in the immune system and birth defects have been also attributed to noise exposure. Although age-related health effects (presbycusis) occur naturally with age, in many countries the cumulative impact of noise is sufficient to impair the hearing of a large fraction of the population over the course of a lifetime. Noise exposure has been known to induce noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus, hypertension, vasoconstriction, and other cardiovascular adverse effects. Chronic noise exposure has been associated with sleep disturban ...
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Comfort Noise
Comfort noise (or comfort tone) is synthetic background noise used in radio and wireless communications to fill the artificial silence in a transmission resulting from voice activity detection or from the audio clarity of modern digital lines. Some modern telephone systems (such as wireless and VoIP) use voice activity detection (VAD), a form of squelching where low volume levels are ignored by the transmitting device. In digital audio transmissions, this saves bandwidth of the communications channel by transmitting nothing when the source volume is under a certain threshold, leaving only louder sounds (such as the speaker's voice) to be sent. However, improvements in background noise reduction technologies can occasionally result in the complete removal of all noise. Although maximizing call quality is of primary importance, exhaustive removal of noise may not properly simulate the typical behavior of terminals on the PSTN system. The result of receiving total silence, especia ...
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Acoustician
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries. Hearing is one of the most crucial means of survival in the animal world and speech is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human development and culture. Accordingly, the science of acoustics spreads across many facets of human society—music, medicine, architecture, industrial production, warfare and more. Likewise, animal species such as songbirds and frogs use sound and hearing as a key element of mating rituals or for marking territories. Art, craft, science and technology have prov ...
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Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area in California. Its estimated 2019 population was 178,127. It is the largest city in California's Wine Country and Redwood Empire, Redwood Coast. It is the fifth most populous city in the Bay Area after San Jose, California, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, California, Oakland, and Fremont, California, Fremont; and the List of largest California cities by population, 25th most populous city in California. History Early history Before the arrival of Europeans, what became known as the Santa Rosa Plain was occupied by a strong and populous tribe of Pomo natives known as the Bitakomtara. The Bitakomtara controlled the area closely, barring passage to others until permission was arranged. Those who entered without permission were subject t ...
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Pink Noise
Pink noise or noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave interval (halving or doubling in frequency) carries an equal amount of noise energy. Pink noise sounds like a waterfall. It is often used to tune loudspeaker systems in professional audio. Pink noise is one of the most commonly observed signals in biological systems. The name arises from the pink appearance of visible light with this power spectrum. This is in contrast with white noise which has equal intensity per frequency interval. Definition Within the scientific literature, the term 1/f noise is sometimes used loosely to refer to any noise with a power spectral density of the form S(f) \propto \frac, where ''f'' is frequency, and 0 < α < 2, with exponent α usually close to 1. One-dimensional signals with α = 1 are usually called pink noise. T ...
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Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy– Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996. It modernized the flow of healthcare information, stipulates how personally identifiable information maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft, and addressed some limitations on healthcare insurance coverage. It generally prohibits healthcare providers and healthcare businesses, called ''covered entities'', from disclosing protected information to anyone other than a patient and the patient's authorized representatives without their consent. With limited exceptions, it does not restrict patients from receiving information about themselves. It does not prohibit patients from voluntarily sharing their health information however they choose, nor does it require confidential ...
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