Mumbai: Delhi Capitals' skipper Rishabh Pant believes that the off-field noise caused by the Covid-19 scare in the team made them think about giving their complete focus towards their match against Punjab Kings at the Brabourne Stadium. There was a cloud of uncertainty over the match to happen as scheduled as Delhi's wicketkeeper-batter Tim Seifert tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday morning, taking the tally of people infected by the virus to six. But Delhi put all those concerns aside with an all-round, thumping nine-wicket win over Punjab to go to sixth place in the points table. "Obviously there was confusion in our camp because in the morning we got to know that Tim (Seifert) is also positive. There was some confusion, nervousness and what are we going to do now kinda feeling, but we spoke in the team meeting and pointed out on what we can focus. There was so much noise from the outside that we thought we will focus on the match," said Pant after the match.whirlwind opening partnership of 83 between David Warner (60 not out) and Prithvi Shaw (41 off 20 balls). "Mostly I like to leave them (Shaw and Warner) alone as everyone knows their roles in the team. We will look to improve in every match and that's the only thing we can control, results are not in our control but we can learn from our mistakes," stated Pant. Punjab were cruising at 33/0 in 3.3 overs. But the introduction of off-spin from Lalit Yadav, followed by left-arm spin of Axar Patel and left-arm wrist spin from Kuldeep Yadav derailed Punjab's innings. Asked about his reason to bring spinners early on, Pant remarked, "On a wicket like this, after one or two overs, I saw the ball was stopping a bit and I thought I should use more spin. I thought 150 would be a good enough score to stop them at." Delhi's next match will be against Rajasthan Royals on April 22 at the Wankhede Stadium, shifted from the original venue of MCA Stadium in Pune. &nbsp;

 Delhi Capitals' skipper Rishabh Pant believes that the off-field noise caused by the Covid-19 scare in the team made them think about giving their complete focus towards their match against Punjab Kings at the Brabourne Stadium.

IPL 2022: Noise from outside made us think to focus on match, says Rishabh Pant

Washington: Lowering the amount of noise in the operating room (OR) may have a good effect on a child's behaviour, including fewer temper tantrums and increased willingness to eat, in the days following surgery and anaesthesia, according to researchers.
The research was presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2022 annual meeting.
Excessive noise in the OR is a prominent complaint among patients and providers, especially during induction of and emergence from general anesthesia. High noise levels can distress patients, increase their anxiety, and negatively affect patient safety and comfort. "The period before, during and after surgery is a particularly unpredictable time for parents," said Nguyen Tram, Ph.D., study lead author and a research scientist at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. "By implementing some small measures in the OR, we found we were able to markedly improve some of this uncertainty for parents in the key behavioural areas of mood, eating and engagement."
In the study, 64 preschool children (ages 4 to 5 years old) undergoing general anesthesia for tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy or dental procedures lasting at least 30 minutes, were randomized into either a "reduced noise" group, which had low ambient lighting, muted communication devices and reduced OR personnel, or a control group (33 in reduced noise group vs. 31 in control group). All patients were given a standard oral sedative prior to the induction of anesthesia.
Behavior was assessed using the Induction Compliance Checklist, which measures adverse behavior at induction of anesthesia; Modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale, which assesses children's anxiety during the preoperative period; and Post Hospitalization Behavior Questionnaire, which assesses children's post-hospitalization and postoperative new-onset behavioural changes. The Post Hospitalization Behavior Questionnaire was completed by parents at postoperative days one and five.
The results from the Post Hospital Behavior Questionnaire found that children in the reduced noise group had fewer tantrums, were less fussy about eating, and were more interested in what goes on around them in the first five days following surgery. There were no statistically significant differences found between the two groups in the other assessments. The researchers hypothesize that a quiet environment may positively impact children's behavior after having general anesthesia, similarly to how most people need a quiet environment for a good night's sleep. "For the first time, we've been able to show how reduced noise in the OR can improve postoperative behaviour in children in the first several days after having general anesthesia," said Dr. Tram. "Excessive noise not only directly affects patients, but can potentially impact patient safety by impairing provider communication and recognition of audible and visual alarms during the critical induction period. Future research is needed to further determine the best way to optimize the OR and perioperative environment to improve patient outcomes after surgery and anesthesia." —ANI

Lowering the amount of noise in the operating room (OR) may have a good effect on a child's behaviour, including fewer temper tantrums and increased willingness to eat, in the days following surgery and anaesthesia, according to researchers.

Reducing Noise In Operating Room Improves Children's Behaviour After Surgery

Beijing: If you reside close to a busy road, you may feel as though the constant noise of the motors, honking of the horns, and wailing of the sirens raises your blood pressure.
The reality was supported by a fresh study published in JACC: Advances.
"We were a little surprised that the association between road traffic noise and hypertension was robust even after adjustment for air pollution," said Jing Huang, assistant professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at Peking University in Beijing, China, and lead author of the study. Previous studies of the issue were cross-sectional, meaning they showed that traffic noise and hypertension were linked, but failed to show a causal relationship. For the new paper, researchers conducted a prospective study using UK Biobank data that looked at health outcomes over time. Researchers analyzed data from more than 240,000 people (aged 40 to 69 years) who started out without hypertension. They estimated road traffic noise based on the residential addresses and the Common Noise Assessment Method, a European modelling tool.
Using follow-up data over a median 8.1 years, they looked at how many people developed hypertension. Not only did they find that people living near road traffic noise were more likely to develop hypertension, they also found that risk increased in tandem with the noise "dose."
These associations held true even when researchers adjusted for exposure to fine particles and nitrogen dioxide. However, people who had high exposure to both traffic noise and air pollution had the highest hypertension risk, showing that air pollution plays a role as well.
"Road traffic noise and traffic-related air pollution coexist around us," Huang said. "It is essential to explore the independent effects of road traffic noise, rather than the total environment."
The findings can support public health measures because they confirm that exposure to road traffic noise is harmful to our blood pressure, she said. Policymaking may alleviate the adverse impacts of road traffic noise as a societal effort, such as setting stricter noise guidelines and enforcement, improving road conditions and urban design, and investing advanced technology in quieter vehicles.
"To date, this is the first large-sized prospective study directly addressing the effect of road traffic noise on the incidence of newly-diagnosed hypertension," said Jiandong Zhang, cardiovascular disease fellow in the division of cardiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of the accompanying editorial comment. "The data demonstrated in this article provides a higher quality of evidence to justify the potential to modify road traffic noise and air pollution from both individual and societal levels in improving cardiovascular health."
As a follow-up, Huang said field studies are underway to better understand the pathophysiological mechanisms through which road noise affects hypertension.
The study was supervised by Kazem Rahimi, lead of the Deep Medicine program at the Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford, and Samuel Cai, lecturer in environmental epidemiology at the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester. —ANI

If you reside close to a busy road, you may feel as though the constant noise of the motors, honking of the horns, and wailing of the sirens raises your blood pressure.

How Road Noise Linked With High Blood Pressure: Study

Boston: According to a recent study, those who were exposed to even moderate levels of aircraft noise had a higher risk of not getting the minimum amount of sleep recommended each night. This risk was also higher for those who lived in the Western United States, close to a significant cargo airport, close to a sizable body of water, and for those without hearing loss. The Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Oregon State University have conducted a new analysis, which adds to a growing body of research on the harmful health effects of environmental noise, and found that exposure to even moderate levels of aeroplane noise may disturb sleep. Major airline officials predict another record summer air travel season. Findings of the study that was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, those who were exposed to aeroplane noise at levels as low as 45 dB had a higher likelihood of sleeping less than 7 hours every night. For reference, a whisper is 30 decibels (dB), a library is 40 dB, and an average home discussion is 50 dB. Sleep is essential to overall health and well-being, including daily physical and mental functioning, and a lack of adequate sleep can lead to increased risks of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, cancer, and numerous other health conditions. Health experts state that most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep each night for healthy functioning. This study is the first large-scale analysis of aircraft noise and sleep duration that accounts for the disruptive effects of multiple environmental exposures in communities, such as greenery and light at night (LAN). Despite how common exposure to noise from aircraft is for many people, little is known about the health effects of aircraft noise, particularly in the U.S., according to study lead author Matthew Bozigar, assistant professor of epidemiology at OSU, and study senior author Junenette Peters, associate professor of environmental health at BUSPH. "This study helps us understand the potential health pathways by which aircraft noise may act, such as through disrupted sleep," Peters says. For the study, Dr. Peters, Dr. Bozigar and colleagues from BUSPH, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health examined airplane noise exposure and self-reported sleep disturbance among more than 35,000 participants living around 90 of the major US airports. The participants were selected from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), an ongoing, prospective study of US female nurses who have completed biennial questionnaires since 1976. The team examined aircraft noise levels every five years from 1995 to 2015, focusing on two measurements: a nighttime estimate (Lnight) that captures airplane noise occurring when people sleep, and a day-night estimate (DNL) that captures the average noise level over a 24-hour period and applies a 10 dB adjustment for aircraft noise occurring at night, when background noise is low. The DNL is also the primary metric that the FAA uses for aircraft noise policies, and the threshold for significant noise impacts is above DNL 65 dB. The team linked these measures at multiple thresholds with the nurses' geocoded residential addresses. After accounting for a range of factors, including demographics, health behaviors, comorbidities, and environmental exposures such as greenery and light at night (LAN), the results showed that the odds of sleeping less than seven hours rose as airplane noise exposure increased. Short sleep duration was also more likely among nurses who lived on the West Coast, near a major cargo airport or a large body of water, as well as among nurses who reported no hearing loss. "We found surprisingly strong relationships for particular subgroups that we are still trying to understand," Bozigar says. "For instance, there was a relatively strong signal between aircraft noise and both dimensions of disrupted sleep, short sleep duration and poor sleep quality, near major cargo airports. There is likely more going on to this story, as cargo operations tend to use larger, older, heavily laden, and therefore noisier aircraft that often fly through the nighttime hours. And the quantity of cargo shipped by air has been steadily increasing over the last couple of decades, possibly linked to more e-commerce. If the trends continue, it could mean more aircraft noise impacts to more groups of people." While the results suggested a clear link between airplane noise and sleep duration, the researchers observed no consistent association between aircraft noise and quality of sleep. "Though we cannot recommend policy changes from the results from a single study, our study around 90 U.S. airports did reveal a connection between aircraft noise and getting less than the recommended amount of sleep," says Dr. Bozigar. "Current gaps in knowledge could be filled in the future by including additional demographic groups--such as children, men, minority groups--and more detailed metrics of aircraft noise rather than a nightly or 24-hour average in studies. There are also more detailed ways of measuring sleep than from self-reports, such as wearable activity monitors, like a Fitbit, that researchers are incorporating more frequently in studies. And we still need to design studies that include other common sources of transportation noise, such as from cars and trains, to determine the impact of each type on health." —ANI

According to a recent study, those who were exposed to even moderate levels of aircraft noise had a higher risk

Exposure To Airplane Noise Increases Risk Of Sleeping Less Than 7 Hours: Study

Lausanne (Switzerland): Did you know that you could create a loudspeaker by ionising the air with wires? Simply put, it is possible to produce sound by generating an electric field strong enough to ionise the air molecules in a series of parallel wires, or a plasma transducer. The remaining non-ionized air is then pushed in a way that produces sound as the charged ions are then accelerated along the magnetic field lines. A loudspeaker can both produce and absorb sound. Researchers have developed a novel idea, which they refer to as the active "plasmacoustic metalayer," which can be tuned to reduce noise. The study was published in the journal, 'Nature Communications'. Although the idea of a plasma loudspeaker is not new, EPFL researchers still built a plasma transducer demonstration in order to research noise reduction. The scientists were intrigued by the idea of using plasma to reduce noise since it gets rid of one of the most important aspects of conventional loudspeakers: the membrane. Loudspeakers equipped with membranes, like the ones in your car or at home, are some of the most studied solutions for active noise reduction. It's active because the membrane can be controlled to cancel out different sounds, as opposed to a wall that does the job passively. The problem with using the conventional loudspeaker as a sound absorber is that its membrane limits the frequency range of operation. For sound absorption, the membrane behaves mechanically, vibrating to cancel out the sound waves in the air. The fact that the membrane is relatively heavy, i.e. the inertia of the membrane, limits its ability to interact efficiently with fast-changing sounds or at high frequencies. "We wanted to reduce the effect of the membrane as much as possible since it's heavy. But what can be as light as air? The air itself," explained Stanislav Sergeev, a postdoc at EPFL's Acoustic Group and first author. "We first ionize the thin layer of air between the electrodes that we call a plasm-acoustic meta layer. The same air particles, now electrically charged, can instantaneously respond to external electrical field commands and effectively interact with sound vibrations in the air around the device to cancel them out." Sergeev added, "As expected, the communication between the electrical control system of the plasma and the acoustic environment is much faster than with a membrane." Not only is the plasma efficient at high frequencies, but it is also versatile since it can be tuned to work at low frequencies as well. Indeed, the scientists show that the dynamics of thin layers of air plasma can be controlled to interact with sound over deep-subwavelength distances, to actively respond to noise and cancel it out over a broad bandwidth. The fact that their device is active is key since passive noise reduction technologies are limited in the band of frequencies that can be controlled. The plasma absorber is also more compact than most conventional solutions. Exploiting the unique physics of 'plasmacoustic metalayers', the scientists experimentally demonstrate perfect sound absorption: "100% of the incoming sound intensity is absorbed by the meta layer and nothing is reflected back," says EPFL's Acoustic Group's senior scientist Herve Lissek. They also show tunable acoustic reflection from several Hz to the kHz range, with transparent plasma layers of thicknesses down to only a thousandth of a given wavelength, much smaller than conventional noise reduction solutions. To give an idea of how much more compact the plasma absorber is, consider a low, audible sound frequency of 20 Hz, where the sonic wavelength is 17m meters long. The plasma layer would only need to be 17 mm thick to absorb the noise, whereas most conventional noise reduction solutions, like absorbing walls, would need to be at least 4 m thick which often limits its feasibility. "The most fantastic aspect of this concept is that, unlike conventional sound absorbers relying on porous bulk materials or resonant structures, our concept is somehow ethereal. We have unveiled a completely new mechanism of sound absorption, that can be made as thin and light as possible, opening new frontiers in terms of noise control where space and weight matter, especially at low frequencies" said Herve Lissek. —ANI

Did you know that you could create a loudspeaker by ionising the air with wires? Simply put

Active Ionisation Of Air Noise Reduction: Study

London: According to new research, monkeys increase their usage of scent markings in order to compensate for human noise pollution.  Pied tamarins (Saguinus bicolor) communicate through both vocal calls and scent markings, and the current study, published in the journal Ethology Ecology &amp; Evolution, is the first to look into how monkeys' communication tactics shift in response to noise pollution. The pied tamarin has an extremely narrow geographic range in central Brazil, much of which now lies within the city of Manaus. The city’s expansion has restricted individual groups to small patches of forest, surrounded by noisy urban environments, and the species is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN. The new study, led by academics from Universidade Federal do Amazonas and Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), investigated the behaviour of nine separate groups of wild pied tamarins. The researchers used radio tracking to follow each group for 10 days. Within each area visited, the most common source of anthropogenic noise was road traffic, although there was also noise pollution caused by aircraft, park visitors, and even military activity. Being able to communicate with other groups is vital for the health and ultimately the survival of a species. Pied tamarins use several types of scent marking which have different functions, including passing on reproductive and territorial information. During the new study, the researchers found that the frequency of scent marking directly increased in line with noise decibel levels. The results suggest that scent marking is being used more frequently as the pied tamarins’ vocal communication becomes less effective due to the impacts of human noise. Lead author Tainara Sobroza, of Universidade Federal do Amazonas, said, “Many species depend on acoustic signals to communicate with other members of the same species about essential information such as foraging, mate attraction, predators, and territorial defence. “Pied tamarins produce long calls which are used for group cohesion, intergroup communication and to mark their territory. Long calls are especially important in fragmented forests which is the case in Manaus, as the urban landscape encroaches further into the pied tamarins’ territory. Our research indicates that communication is being impacted by urbanisation as the occurrence of scent marking is increasing directly in response to increased noise levels.” Co-author Dr Jacob Dunn, Associate Professor in Evolutionary Biology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said, “Humans have contributed many additional stimuli to the soundscapes that animals have evolved to deal with, and anthropogenic noise is increasingly drowning out natural sounds. “The increased use of scent marking by pied tamarins is likely to be a flexible response towards this environmental change. This is an interesting result from a conservation perspective as it shows pied tamarins are adapting their behaviour in response to city noise. “An advantage of scent marking over vocal communication is that it allows information to be passed on over a number of days. However, unlike vocal calls, scent markings are not an effective way of communicating over long distances. As the pied tamarins’ range is becoming more fragmented and groups are becoming more isolated, this could potentially have a detrimental impact on a species which is already critically endangered.” —ANI

According to new research, monkeys increase their usage of scent markings in order to compensate for human noise pollution

The Hawk

Tag : Noise

IPL 2022: Noise from outside made us think to focus on match, says Rishabh Pant

Sunil Aswal

The Hawk

Tag : Noise

IPL 2022: Noise from outside made us think to focus on match, says Rishabh Pant

Sunil Aswal

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